Día de Acción de Gracias- Buenos Aires Style

Celebrating holidays away from family is always difficult, especially Thanksgiving. It is the one time a year where you are guaranteed a good meal with your family and all you have to do is be thankful. You don't have the pressures of finding the last dyed egg or picking out the perfect sure-to-be-exchanged sweater for your holiday exchange partner. All you need to do is eat! I have to admit, I was sad to think that this year I would miss out on the festivities, since Amy and I did not have any T-day plans as of Tuesday. We were set on treating it like the other porteños- just another ordinary Thursday.

As usual, Amy and I went to yoga on Tuesday; however, instead of our private lesson that we're used to, another girl, Mary from NY, was in the class. Mary had just arrived to Buenos Aires and we got to talking about things to do in the city, etc. Well by the end of class, we had exchanged emails and Amy and I managed to create a surrogate family, which included the 3 of us and the yoga instructor for a Thanksgiving pot-luck dinner. Not too shabby. Amy invited one other girl from the States so in total we were 5.

The list circulated and we all received our assignments. We quickly realized that traditional Thanksgiving Day food was not so easy to come by since we are currently in the midst of a very hot spring season. For example: turkey, not available. We came up with a quick fix and ordered delicious rotisserie chicken from a Peruvian restaurant. (For those NYers reading this, think Pio Pio, and then imagined that it tastes even better!) I signed up to make the dessert, and originally thought that an apple pie would be nice and familiar, but those too are not in season. What fruits are in season? Strawberries and peaches. So I looked up summer fruit recipes and found an easy tart recipe- feel free to use it at your next 4th of July BBQ . I ended up with way too many peaches (who knew that a kilo of peaches equaled 14?) so I made two tarts for five people, this seems about right, no? Amy made mashed potatoes and also a delicious salad.

The tarts!

We decided to have the dinner at Mary's. She has a beautiful apartment in Palermo with great, big open windows looking out to the city. Mary was also kind enough to supply the vino- and boy did she supply, there were more bottles of wine than guests, I think it might have been a 2:1 ratio. And while we drank a good amount there were still 4 bottles left over!

The surrogate family: Amy, Diane, Barbara & Mary

The feast! Includes stuffing by Diane, and sweet potatoes and spinach made by Barbara!

Needless to say, although we were not in the US we were still super gluttonous and had way too much food! And I got to take an entire tart home! So in typical Murphy tradition, I had a piece for breakfast! And I am thinking about having another slice now...yumm! I hope you all had great Thanksgivings with your families and and are suffering from turkey hangovers (Mayen, I know you are).
This year I am thankful because Pat and Bri Bri are coming in less than a week!

Besos!