On Wednesday afternoon, most of the companies, factories, shops, and schools were leaving work early, and the streets were full of people rushing home, and in a big city like New York, the roads would be clogged up until late. This day is equivalent to the twenty-ninth year of the Spring Festival for us Chinese.

Starting the next day, Thursday, Thanksgiving officially begins, and everyone in the family has to get up early in the morning to start decorating for the holiday. Usually the man takes the children to clean the street, lawn or garden outside the door, and the hostess begins to scrub and scrub in the kitchen, get out all the high-end porcelain and silverware in the house, wash and wipe them one by one, put them in the cupboard for later use, and then marinate the large turkey with salted water and pepper.

At 9 o'clock sharp, the whole family sat together to watch the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (MacysThanksgivingDayParade) from the TV, this Macy's is Macy's department store, this parade is hosted by this company, every year at 9 o'clock in the morning of Thanksgiving, parades from all over the United States will gather in New York to start parading the streets, there are tens of thousands of performers alone, and countless people watch the performance. The march lasted for three hours, and most families in the United States, except for New Yorkers, were eating snacks while watching the parade, and lunch was basically saved.

In the afternoon, it's basically time for the home chef to put on a show, mainly dealing with the giant turkey. The turkey Sam bought back weighs 6 kilograms, it is said that this is not a large size, it can only belong to the small and medium-sized size, and the large turkey is generally about 8 kilograms, and it is a net weight, without hair and internal organs.

Hong Tao was curious about Lao Mei's festive dinner, and he knew how to cook himself, so visiting Mrs. Burgess's cooking became the only pleasure he could find this afternoon. Now there is nowhere to go out and play, and basically all the entertainment facilities and commercial outlets are closed.

The turkey had been marinated in brine and pepper by Mrs. Burgess in the morning, and the curing process took about five or six hours, just enough time after lunch. At this time, the turkey should be rinsed with water, then the chicken butt should be chopped off and thrown away, put on kitchen paper to absorb the moisture from the turkey, and set aside for later use.

European and American cooking will put a lot of spices, such as thyme, rosemary and the like, just like the green onions, coriander, cumin we use, and roast turkey also has to prepare these. Also prepare some vegetables. These vegetables are roasted together in the belly of the turkey to absorb the fat and aroma in the belly. Mrs. Burgess prepared carrots, celery, onions, and potatoes, which were to be cut into small cubes, and Hong Tao volunteered to do so, although his knife skills were not good, but there was no problem with the master who could cut the shredded potatoes.

After all these things are cut, they are divided into 2 parts, and most of the half is stuffed from the chicken butt into the stomach until it is full. Then use a thin stainless steel wire to thread the openings at both ends of the chicken. At this point, take a large baking tray (the kind made of thick tin foil, which is sold in supermarkets), put the remaining diced vegetables on the bottom of the baking sheet, and put a grill on the plate. Spread tin foil and set aside.

You can't put the turkey in the oven right now, because the spices haven't been put in yet. Chop the thyme and rosemary into minced pieces, then put a piece of butter in the microwave and heat it for dozens of seconds, and the butter will become a liquid state. At this time, add the chopped spices to the butter and stir well, and then you can spread it on the turkey. Finally, place this turkey on the grill in a baking pan and roast in an oven preheated to 425 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour. Take it out, smear it with the spice liquid again, put it in the oven at more than 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and bake it for another 2 and a half hours before it is finally done.

By cooking with Mrs. Burgess, Hong Tao discovered that Americans cook the same as chemistry experiments, with a small electronic scale on the side of the board at all times, and a few recipes always pasted on the cabinet. When cooking, how many grams of meat are served with side dishes, how many grams of spices, how many grams of salt and butter, etc., all have to be weighed before they can be mixed according to the proportions written in the recipe.

What surprised Hong Tao the most was that when the turkey was taken out of the oven, Mrs. Burgess also inserted a small watch plate-like thing into the turkey, Hong Tao leaned close and took a closer look, this should be a thermometer, and its function is to display the temperature inside the chicken to prevent everyone from being scalded when eating chicken!

"Are you all fools? Won't you take a small bite first to taste whether it is hot or not? Are all facial features white? When Hong Tao asked to understand the role of this small watch, he despised these Americans fiercely in his heart, isn't this purely superfluous, if human beings live like this, sooner or later their facial features will be degraded and become an octopus with a big head!

In addition to the roast turkey, Mrs. Burgess made a pumpkin pie, hummus, and a vegetable salad, and had to have two or three other dressings, such as tomato spicy sauce and brandy sauce, to add some flavor to the turkey.

It is said to be the most important Thanksgiving dinner of the year, in fact, there are 4 dishes wrapped in Baogui, but the amount of dishes is relatively large, and the turkey weighing more than ten pounds alone is enough for this family of 5 bites. However, in terms of richness and taste changes of dishes, it cannot be compared with Chinese food at all, and during the Spring Festival in China, whether it is a big city or a village, who does not have seven plates and eight bowls, there must be several meat dishes, and chicken, duck and fish must account for three things.

To be honest, the taste of this roast turkey is really average, it smells okay, and it doesn't taste as vacuum-packed Texas grilled chicken. But Hong Tao is a guest, and it is the first time he has returned to his mother-in-law's house after getting married, not only can he not pick and choose, but he also has to put on a very favorite look. Fortunately, Lao Mei made vegetables and cloth vegetables from time to time, and she ate as much as she could, which made Hong Tao a lot freer, and barely ate two more bites than everyone else, in order to show her gratitude to her mother-in-law for her hard work.

After eating Thanksgiving dinner, this festival is not over, and like our Chinese New Year, it has to be a little exquisite. The Chinese New Year is all about keeping the New Year, setting off firecrackers, and making dumplings, and Thanksgiving here is all about playing games, where the family can entertain themselves behind closed doors or participate in various game competitions held by the community.

Sam's community held a traditional Thanksgiving pumpkin rolling competition on the night of Thanksgiving, and each family in the community had to send a contestant to participate.

The pumpkin rolling race, as the name suggests, is to make the pumpkin roll, and whoever reaches the finish line first wins. However, the tool for rolling pumpkin is not a hand, but a spoon, that is, a spoon for eating, and the smaller the spoon, the better, the more it can win the applause of the audience, as for who wins, it doesn't matter, the prize is the pumpkin you roll, you can take it home if you win or lose.

Mrs. Burgess originally prepared a stainless steel spoon for Hong Tao, but after Hong Tao heard the rules of the competition, he immediately said that he had a smaller spoon. So he took out a small spoon from his toiletry bag in full view of everyone, and amused everyone in Sam's house. This spoon is made of bamboo, more than ten centimeters long, the spoon head is not as big as a grain of rice, and the scientific name is ear digging spoon!

Although he was not the first to push a pumpkin to the finish line 20 meters away, his spoon was the smallest of all the competitors, which was in line with the American mentality, so everyone agreed that the largest pumpkin belonged to the Burgess family.

In fact, this competition is a party for community residents, just to let everyone get together more and connect with each other. During the competition, each family took out their own desserts, drinks, and beers together, and everyone ate and drank together, chatted together, men talked about sports and economy, women talked about fashion gossip, and children talked about school girlfriends.

At about 10 o'clock in the evening, Sam carried the big pumpkin and brought the family back to the court, and then Mrs. Burgess waved her hand and announced the next day's family activities, getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning and going shopping together at the mall in the city. Hong Tao had to raise his hand to agree with this decision, because the whole family went out to buy discounted goods on the second day of Thanksgiving, which is also an important activity in the festival.

The average American family buys as much as they want to buy for the whole year at the end of the year, mainly to save money, because during Thanksgiving and Christmas, almost all stores are discounted, and the bigger the store, the more discounts. Especially on the second day of Thanksgiving, it is called Black Friday by the American department store industry, and many stores open at 1 or 2 o'clock in the middle of the night on this day.

In the early hours of the next morning, Sam and his family set off in two cars, and their destination was a Fashion Outlets in Buffalo City, which translates to fashion outlets. Buffalo is not very big, but this mall is famous in New York State because it is located right next to the U.S.-Canada border, not far from Niagara Falls, and is not only for local Americans, but also for tourists and Canadians across the border to buy goods, because prices in the United States are lower than in Canada, especially during holiday discounts.

This is the first time Hong Tao has seen such a crazy side of the Americans, don't think about entering the parking lot, there is already a long convoy 500 meters away, according to the license plate of the car, there are many people from Canada, and even from Toronto. Hong Tao is more accustomed to this kind of scene, after all, he often faces it in China, he asked Sam and his wife to take Katie to the mall first, and he and Erin drove the car to line up, so that they would not delay the opportunity to buy discounted goods, nor would they park at will and be fined. (To be continued......)