It was not easy to find a turkey in New Zealand. We tried the grocery store and a meat market with no success. Then we located a butcher who could get us a turkey. He would even stuff it and “bone and roll” it. Boning and rolling means he takes out the bones and does something to the meat so all you do is put it in the oven and it is very easy to cut up and serve. The only problem was when we came to pick up the turkey on Thursday the butcher did not have it. He thought we needed it Friday for some reason. I was rather worried, as we had several friends coming over for dinner. Most of them had never had a turkey like this before. Luckily he was able to find us a turkey and have it ready in time.
We bought a 5kg turkey, which is apparently as large as they come in New Zealand. I don’t know if the turkey was actually from NZ, but I would assume it was as we have seen some wild turkeys up north. We were rather surprized that a 5kg turkey cost us $60.
Some ingredients are harder to locate in NZ. We could not find any cranberries or pumpkin filling. Instead of pumpkin pie we made sweet potato pie, which turned out very well. It tasted almost exactly like pumpkin pie.
Everything went well. We had about ten guests over, and amazingly the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatos, rolls, peas, and corn were all ready on time, and everything was served hot. Everyone seemed to enjoy the American tradition of eating until you can’t eat anymore.
I did find myself missing home a bit. It just didn’t feel like Thanksgiving without getting to watch the Lions get beat.
Comment by Doug and Hope — November 24, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
Hi Josh, Bethany, & All…. Chris sent us your site. We are enjoying your adventure! Happy Thanksgiving to you and all of your friends. I am quite sure that the turkey dinner was wonderful! The DVD of Chris & Jeremi’s wedding was delivered yesterday and we enjoyed re-living that great day. You were so handsome that day (that comment is from Hope) .
All the best and stay healthy!
Comment by Jeff Moore — November 24, 2006 @ 11:42 pm
Sounds FUN! Glad you guys made a day of it. And how fun to have all your new friends to experience it with you. Man! That turkey sounds expensive. But sounds fun that you sprang for it anyway. Did the butcher make the stuffing or did you and Beth? Did you have ice cream with the pie? How’s the ice cream in NZ anyway? Unusual flavors? like kiwi and stuff? Watching the lions look awful wasn’t too much of a treat… We keep thinking year after year that they can’t get worse, and maybe they don’t, but they can’t seem to get any better either.
Comment by Jeff Moore — November 26, 2006 @ 12:36 am
I love all the details! Thank you, Josh! And I’m proud of you for being persistent and forging forward on PLAN A–TURKEY . . . at all cost! Again, even though I’m not commenting on all the details, they were really fun to read–really gave the flavor (no pun intended) of your day there. And the picture’s a great one–fun to see, plus nice photographically.
OK, on a different subject, I am a little embarrassed to admit I can’t tell if that’s you in the Hot Beach picture. Please enlighten me.
Also, I bought a map of New Zealand today! It’s awesome. About 2′ x 3′. Love it that I can follow you better–get a better idea of where places like Coromandel Peninsula are. It’ll be great to have by Dad’s computer for whenever I’m checking your site from here.
We missed you, too! XOXOX
Comment by Peg Moore — November 26, 2006 @ 12:38 am
Hey! That last comment was by me. I’m guessing maybe you figured that out?
Comment by Peg Moore — November 26, 2006 @ 12:43 am
Grrr, now where did Dad’s comment and my comment (between your comment and my “Hey!” comment) go? If you don’t have them buried somewhere on your end, let me know, and I’ll reconstruct mine. Signed: Blog-Challenged in Milford
Comment by Louise Shimon — November 26, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
Well, believe you me, when you say you found yourself missing home a bit, I’m sitting here on a Sunday pustying (official word?) around looking at your gorgeous and wistfully reading your full-of-life blog. Your Thanksgiving meal with your friends sounds like it could be make into a Hallmark movie. It just sounds so warm and special and full of friendship. And, full of food! Yum. I will say about the sweet potato pie that sweet potatoes are something I could never eat when I was younger (and haven’t given them a chance in recent years). I told your mom that I didn’t like the smell of them. She blindfolded me and put different foods on a fork (or something) and held them one at at time under my nose to see if for sure I could *really* determine a standing-out sweet potato smell! This was at the round oak table in the kitchen at Gunderland.
Thanks everyone for posting. Good to hear from you Hope and Doug. We just got back from a trip down the west coast. I will be posting some updates soon.
We didn’t have any ice cream with the meal, but we did have some strawberries and cream on top of the pies. The sweet potato pie tasted almost exactly like pumpkin pie. As far as ice cream in general here, the national flavor is called “hokey pokey” and it is like… vanilla with some butterscotch or something in it. It is quite good.
Sorry the blog confused you mom. It may have thought your double posting was spam . When the blog thinks someone is spamming, or if it is someones first post to the comments section it puts the comments into a queue and they do not show on the website until I approve them. They aren’t lost though. Glad to hear you got a map. We have a big one on the wall here.
Oh yeah, we had stuffing in the turkey from the butcher, and stuffing on the side that was our own. They don’t have stovetop here though. The stuff we made wasn’t that good.
An interesting note- a sweet potato in New Zealand is called a kumara. Also, (while we are on the subject) a bell pepper is called a capsicum. Thanksgiving was great – especially since most everyone there (excluding Josh, Julia, and me) had never had Thanksgiving before. The turkey was expensive but definitely worth it. Too bad there were no left-overs! So Happy Belated Thanksgiving to everyone!
Comment by Peg Moore — November 27, 2006 @ 11:18 pm
14 Comments »
Comment by josh — November 24, 2006 @ 5:55 pm
It was not easy to find a turkey in New Zealand. We tried the grocery store and a meat market with no success. Then we located a butcher who could get us a turkey. He would even stuff it and “bone and roll” it. Boning and rolling means he takes out the bones and does something to the meat so all you do is put it in the oven and it is very easy to cut up and serve. The only problem was when we came to pick up the turkey on Thursday the butcher did not have it. He thought we needed it Friday for some reason. I was rather worried, as we had several friends coming over for dinner. Most of them had never had a turkey like this before. Luckily he was able to find us a turkey and have it ready in time.
We bought a 5kg turkey, which is apparently as large as they come in New Zealand. I don’t know if the turkey was actually from NZ, but I would assume it was as we have seen some wild turkeys up north. We were rather surprized that a 5kg turkey cost us $60.
Some ingredients are harder to locate in NZ. We could not find any cranberries or pumpkin filling. Instead of pumpkin pie we made sweet potato pie, which turned out very well. It tasted almost exactly like pumpkin pie.
Everything went well. We had about ten guests over, and amazingly the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatos, rolls, peas, and corn were all ready on time, and everything was served hot. Everyone seemed to enjoy the American tradition of eating until you can’t eat anymore.
I did find myself missing home a bit. It just didn’t feel like Thanksgiving without getting to watch the Lions get beat.
Comment by Doug and Hope — November 24, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
Hi Josh, Bethany, & All…. Chris sent us your site. We are enjoying your adventure! Happy Thanksgiving to you and all of your friends. I am quite sure that the turkey dinner was wonderful! The DVD of Chris & Jeremi’s wedding was delivered yesterday and we enjoyed re-living that great day. You were so handsome that day (that comment is from Hope)
.
All the best and stay healthy!
Comment by Jeff Moore — November 24, 2006 @ 11:42 pm
Sounds FUN! Glad you guys made a day of it. And how fun to have all your new friends to experience it with you. Man! That turkey sounds expensive. But sounds fun that you sprang for it anyway. Did the butcher make the stuffing or did you and Beth? Did you have ice cream with the pie? How’s the ice cream in NZ anyway? Unusual flavors? like kiwi and stuff? Watching the lions look awful wasn’t too much of a treat… We keep thinking year after year that they can’t get worse, and maybe they don’t, but they can’t seem to get any better either.
Comment by Jeff Moore — November 26, 2006 @ 12:36 am
I love all the details! Thank you, Josh! And I’m proud of you for being persistent and forging forward on PLAN A–TURKEY . . . at all cost!
Again, even though I’m not commenting on all the details, they were really fun to read–really gave the flavor (no pun intended) of your day there. And the picture’s a great one–fun to see, plus nice photographically.
OK, on a different subject, I am a little embarrassed to admit I can’t tell if that’s you in the Hot Beach picture. Please enlighten me.
Also, I bought a map of New Zealand today! It’s awesome. About 2′ x 3′. Love it that I can follow you better–get a better idea of where places like Coromandel Peninsula are. It’ll be great to have by Dad’s computer for whenever I’m checking your site from here.
We missed you, too! XOXOX
Comment by Peg Moore — November 26, 2006 @ 12:38 am
Hey! That last comment was by me. I’m guessing maybe you figured that out?
Comment by Peg Moore — November 26, 2006 @ 12:43 am
Grrr, now where did Dad’s comment and my comment (between your comment and my “Hey!” comment) go? If you don’t have them buried somewhere on your end, let me know, and I’ll reconstruct mine. Signed: Blog-Challenged in Milford
Comment by Louise Shimon — November 26, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
Well, believe you me, when you say you found yourself missing home a bit, I’m sitting here on a Sunday pustying (official word?) around looking at your gorgeous and wistfully reading your full-of-life blog. Your Thanksgiving meal with your friends sounds like it could be make into a Hallmark movie. It just sounds so warm and special and full of friendship. And, full of food! Yum. I will say about the sweet potato pie that sweet potatoes are something I could never eat when I was younger (and haven’t given them a chance in recent years). I told your mom that I didn’t like the smell of them. She blindfolded me and put different foods on a fork (or something) and held them one at at time under my nose to see if for sure I could *really* determine a standing-out sweet potato smell! This was at the round oak table in the kitchen at Gunderland.
Comment by josh — November 27, 2006 @ 12:55 am
Thanks everyone for posting. Good to hear from you Hope and Doug. We just got back from a trip down the west coast. I will be posting some updates soon.
Comment by josh — November 27, 2006 @ 1:00 am
We didn’t have any ice cream with the meal, but we did have some strawberries and cream on top of the pies. The sweet potato pie tasted almost exactly like pumpkin pie. As far as ice cream in general here, the national flavor is called “hokey pokey” and it is like… vanilla with some butterscotch or something in it. It is quite good.
Sorry the blog confused you mom. It may have thought your double posting was spam
. When the blog thinks someone is spamming, or if it is someones first post to the comments section it puts the comments into a queue and they do not show on the website until I approve them. They aren’t lost though. Glad to hear you got a map. We have a big one on the wall here.
Oh yeah, we had stuffing in the turkey from the butcher, and stuffing on the side that was our own. They don’t have stovetop here though. The stuff we made wasn’t that good.
Comment by josh — November 27, 2006 @ 1:12 am
Oh the guy in the hot water beach photo is most certainly not me. He is our friend Andy from Germany.
Comment by beth — November 27, 2006 @ 2:13 am
An interesting note- a sweet potato in New Zealand is called a kumara. Also, (while we are on the subject) a bell pepper is called a capsicum. Thanksgiving was great – especially since most everyone there (excluding Josh, Julia, and me) had never had Thanksgiving before. The turkey was expensive but definitely worth it. Too bad there were no left-overs! So Happy Belated Thanksgiving to everyone!
Comment by Peg Moore — November 27, 2006 @ 11:18 pm
Hi Beth! Fun to hear from you!!!
Comment by jared — December 6, 2006 @ 5:52 pm
Chicago Bears – 2006 NFC North Division Champs!
Comment by kriz johnson — January 10, 2007 @ 12:17 am
Tastiness…
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