En, To, Tre....Go!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

We started our day out by going to the center to get 6 pounds of pork roast in the slow cooker (slow cooker meaning a low heat in the oven).  We got cole slaw made, dessert mostly made, and then we headed for our Danish class.

The teacher looked genuinely flummoxed when we walked in.  "I thought you weren't coming today!" she said.  That confused me, so I told her that yes we were there today.

"But it's Thanksgiving today!" she answered.  I just nodded and said, "Yes it is...but we are here anyway."  The only other American was not there today...and he is the one who hasn't been back in 8 years.  It makes me wonder if he really was celebrating that great American holiday.

We played the Danish version of Bingo...as we once again practiced on numbers.  SK and I were a team and we so wanted to win that tiny little marzipan bar!!!  Well, it wasn't actually the bar we wanted...we just wanted to win.  But we lost...one more number and we would have been the victors.

I have been thinking of Thanksgiving there in the Sates and it warms my heart to think of all of you around your dinner tables and eating turkey and every kind of pie known to man.  I love Thanksgiving!

But I decided that I couldn't really make a Thanksgiving dinner on my own for 20 to 40 people, and so we had pulled pork sandwiches.  I put the pork on small "budget" brand dinner rolls.  Like a hot dog bun but much more substantial...and shorter.  I filled them up full so it looked like a good sandwich.

One amazing find in the American section of a grocery store here...Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce!  It was enormously expensive but we purchased it anyway...aah.  It is good.  We fed 26 and I made about 50 sandwiches which were eaten in no time.  Obviously several of the young women ate only one and several of the young men ate 3 and 4!

I made cole slaw....which SK said no one would like.  We instructed them to put it on their sandwich ... if they chose to.  No one put it on their sandwiches.  But everyone scooped it up and onto their plates, and it disappeared in no time....and they asked for more!  Next time I will make much more and serve it as a side dish instead of a relish!

We cooked up a large package of frozen vegetables that were already in the freezer from before we got here.  We served tortilla chips.  And we topped it all off with EASY Pumpkin Crumble Cake.  This is where Madsen's Law #1 and #2 come into play.  "Nothing is as simple(easy) as you think it will be,"   and "Everything Takes Longer Than it is Supposed to.)

I found a marvelous recipe for "Easy Pumpkin Crumble Cake."  Two items that it requires is a yellow cake mix and sweetened condensed milk. (Erin...there are two more for your list.)   I assumed both were readily available.  After deciding that they are NOT readily available, I made my own sweetened condensed milk, and considered making my own cake mix.  But we found a Danish cake mix at one of the many stores we went into.  It worked, but I thought it tasted a bit peculiar.  But the good news is that the YSAs seemed to love it served with whipped cream.  Hey what isn't improved when topped with whipped cream?

I have to tell you, that an hour before we were to serve the meal, I was quite anxious.  I was sure there wasn't enough.  I was sure the pork was going to be awful. (We couldn't read the labels about what kind of pork it was....but it was on sale, and it looked pretty good).  I thought the cole slaw was a bad idea, and I thought the meal looked kind of anemic.  And not even chocolate for dessert!  I stood at the sink in that little kitchen and prayed for a small miracle...or a big one depending on how you look at it.

I know the small miracle came.  Because there was enough and to spare, and everyone said they ate until they could eat no more.  There are some there who don't often have the luxury of sitting down to a hot meal with friends.  When my father was in college, he often went without food and remembered being hungry a lot.  It is so nice to be able to fix a meal for these young people.

So besides everything else today, I am grateful that the Lord sends small miracles my way...sometimes every day.  Not an indication of any special standing I have with Him, but proof of how much he loves those YSAs.