Whichever holidays you celebrate and wherever you are this festive season, with family in your own country, or somewhere far away in a foreign country, I hope you will be happy and have fun. Last year I was in Moldova, roasting two Moldovan village geese for Christmas dinner. (Not something I’d ever expected to be saying: I roasted two Moldovan village geese.) We invited expat friends whose family live in New Zealand, and the four of us had a lovely meal.
This year we are in the US and I’m cooking a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings and we’ll have lots of family around the table. As a Dutch person I did not grow up with the tradition of stuffing birds, but when I married an American I married a lot of foreign culture as well, so I learned. Love will do that for you.
Whenever I cook a big turkey, I think of my mother’s comment, years ago when she visited us in the US for Christmas. She watched me wrestling with a monster turkey and shook her head in consternation. “Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and just cut it up and roast the parts?” she said with Dutch common sense.
Well, yes, but . . .
Tradition, culture — it can be puzzling.
