Thanksgiving in Japan

I have a turkey in the oven right now. It is about 45 minutes past the time I calculated it would be done. Yikes. Our oven is American our electricity is Japanese, so I never know what temperature my oven is at. This turkey is for a potluck dinner the base puts on for the Japanese orphanage here in Misawa. I guess the city of Misawa or who ever it is that is in charge of funding this orphanage doesn't do a great job, so the base has adopted it. There aren't enough beds for the kids, that says a lot.

This year for Thanksgiving we invited the whole office over, only our Japanese friends accepted, and a friend of mine whose husband is working. I am really excited. Mandy and I are cooking to meal together. We are making it Lily friendly. I am getting pretty good at cooking gluten-free. Our Japanese friends prefer foods that are not terribly sweet or laden with fats so I am presenting the foods a little more nutritiously than perhaps I have in the past. Instead of a green bean casserole we are having green beans, instead of sweet potatoes smothered in marshmallows we are having roasted butternut squash. I am switching to the butternut squash because I really don't like the Japanese sweet potato and I don't like the canned ones. All that and turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy. I am making the gravy out of a broth I will make out of the turkey I am cooking today, so that should be good. I am thinking of trying to make a homemade cranberry sauce. The canned one is full of corn-syrup, Lily is allergic. That should be fun. For dessert I am making a traditional pumpkin pie and a banana pudding, both of which are not Lily friendly, but incredibly important to Jeff. Our Japanese friends don't usually eat dessert, they get full from our enormous dinners. I hope it all turns out edible. It will certainty be memorable, the year we shared our Thanksgiving with our Japanese friends.