Throwing a Thanksgiving Dinner Party in the Jungle: A How To Guide

A MONTH BEFORE:

Decide to have a Thanksgiving dinner. Accept that there are no turkeys in Malaysia, and that you have no way of cooking one in the jungle anyway, and decide to have a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner.

Beg parents to sneak cranberries into New Zealand, because they also don’t exist anywhere in Malaysia.

TWO WEEKS BEFORE:

On a trip to the city, Google recipes that can be made with only a stove. Get carried away when you find a Pintrest page filled with instructions on making chocolate chip cookies without an oven. Try to remind yourself to focus on Thanksgiving. Pick out a stuffing recipe, a gravy recipe, and a mashed potato recipe. Make a grocery list of non-perishable ingredients. Decide to omit the brandy from the gravy because a) Muslim country and b) questionable use of monthly center money.

Learn over the course of the next week that the vast majority of people in the village will not be around for the next month because they are going back to their farms during the school holiday. Momentarily consider cancelling the whole thing, but then decide that it might be a perfect time for Thanksgiving, to gather everyone who is still in the village.

ONE WEEK BEFORE:

On vacation with your parents in New Zealand, learn that they have not brought the cranberries as promised, but they are certain that they can be found. When they cannot, settle for dried cranberries and cross your fingers that they work.

TWO DAYS BEFORE:

Gloat to the Americans at the KL Headquarters that you get to eat stuffing.

DAY OF:

10:00 AM

Feel a little sad that vacation is over as you board the bus back to Tapah. Cheer yourself up with a reminder that your next vacation is only four weeks away. Cheer yourself up a little more thinking about cranberry chutney.

3:00 PM

Once you reach Tapah, head at the supermarket and pick up the rest of the groceries. Do a secret happy dance that you managed to find all the spices and produce you need. Wonder if anyone watching you sniff the celery thinks you’re insane.

5:00 PM

Arrive at the bottom of the mountain and wait for a ride back home.

5:30 PM

Flag down a friend driving by in his car, ask for a ride. Realize that all your bags wouldn’t have fit on a motorcycle and feel lucky that he happened to be driving past.

6:00 PM

Arrive at the house, to find that most of the family is gone. Consider postponing the dinner, but remember the butter and realize you have no choice. Start peeling potatoes, with an “if you build it, they will come mentality.” Discover that the stove is out of gas, and you’ll have to use the fire, cooking one thing at a time. Accept the challenge.

6:30 PM

When the kids of the village show up to ask what you’re doing, tell them to bring their mothers. Soon you’ll have a gaggle of friends asking to help.  Get the young girls to “toast” bread for stuffing, by leaning slices against the fire. Have the adults start chopping, and boiling water.

Put the potatoes in the pot, and tell the ladies to keep testing them until they are soft, while you chop onions.

Potatoes roasting on an open fire...

7:00 PM

Feel amazed by the number of bowls of ingredients you have, and keep mixing them up as you try to make everything at once.

7:30 PM

Realize that you have no idea how to measure 1 liter of chicken stock. Guess.

7:32 PM

Realize that butter is also hard to measure in grams. Assume that the spoon you find is approximately one tablespoon.

7:45 PM

Have one of the ladies start melting butter for the gravy. Cook onions, and wonder if the consistency is right. Add more butter. Add more water. Add more chicken stock. Decide it’s fine. Continue chopping.

8:00 PM

Realize that the water you poured into the pot of dried cranberries for safekeeping is almost completely soaked up. Assume this means they are turning into real cranberries. Add more water and boil them. Wonder if craisins will still “pop” as per the recipe. Cook for a while, add apples and pears and other ingredients.

Struggle to explain what a cranberry is. Give up, and dish out a few handfuls of them.

8:10 PM

Try to smell the cranberry chutney, get a noseful of wood smoke. Relate to the whale in Pinocchio.

8:30 PM

Taste the cranberry chutney, feel like Thanksgiving. Empty the pot into several bowls.

8:40 PM

Start cooking the stuffing. Wonder if the bread is toasted enough.

9:00 PM

Set out plates, and assure everyone that there is no need for rice.

9:05 PM

Dish out a little of everything for everyone.

9:10 PM

Realize that eating mashed potatoes with your hands is messier than eating rice with your hands. Don’t care, because everything is delicious.

9:15 PM

Run out of stuffing, because even in the jungle there is never enough stuffing.

9:30 PM
Finish Thanksgiving dinner in record time. Clean up and say goodnight to all the ladies. Feel incredibly thankful for your jungle family.