Our First Thanksgiving..

Up until this weekend we have been sat in the Chironico car park in Switzerland, skipping between Brione, Cresciano and Chironico climbing areas, making the most of the perfect climbing conditions (freezing) hence this…..

I didn’t even know oil could freeze!

Paul has written two posts covering our last stretch of Swiss climbing for this road trip and they make for great reading, so i wont repeat him. You can find the posts at the following links:

From Switzerland to Germany and back again

Round 3…let the battle commence

We had a number of friends crop up whilst we stopped in Chironico, we caught up with Ixi (the brilliant photographer \climbing guide extraordinaire) who did not disappoint, climbing with him as our personal guide in Brione meant we got to find some of the more obscure boulders, and of course he took some fantastic photographs. At the same time we randomly bumped into Alex, a super strong tea drinking climber, we met (what seems like and age ago) in the first month of our travels. Nicole and Gogi made their second appearance this road trip and sacrificed a whole week of their holiday time to come play with us in Chironico and show us how this climbing malarky is done. We also met John and Ella, two like-minded climber Brits, who had a real thing for Stollen 🙂 it was a brilliant crowd to climb with and a great end to our time in Switzerland.

So onto our first Thanksgiving…We were invited by Nicole and Gogi to attend a Thanksgiving dinner at their apartment in Stuttgart this weekend. Obviously this is not a typical British holiday and we were very excited to be invited to experience it with friends. Arriving on Friday evening we were invited to stay in the apartment in a solid bed, with warmth and running water. An added luxury we had not expected, and in the morning we were treat to a traditional Bavarian breakfast with pretzels, weisswurst and marmalade served with beer to wash it down.

So each guest was to bring a homemade dish to contribute to the Thanksgiving dinner. Nicole and Gogi got the task of cooking the bird an 8kg bird to feed 13 hungry tummies, however Gogi returned to the apartment in the morning with what the butcher apologetically described as a slightly larger bird than ordered. 12kg to be exact, this bird was the boss of all birds, and after much laughing and gaping at the incredible size of the thing, Nicole realised it would probably take up to 7 hours to cook the beast. In the 2 person (only) kitchen she wrestled with the turkey and finally the moment of truth… we had found a ‘makeshift’ pan that kinda fit, we built a little shelf for it to sit on and it was all dressed and ready. Would it hell fit in the oven! No matter how hard we tried the bird was not only to long it was too tall, in fact it was just too big in all dimensions. It was up to the mighty Gore to solve the problem, and ten minutes later we were able to less forcibly than before place a mutilated, legless turkey into the oven.

We decided that since this Thanksgiving was far from American Traditional we would contribute some British dishes and so made monster Sage and Onion Stuffing Balls, Yorkshire Puddings and Pigs in Blankets. For dessert we cooked a very heavy unhealthy but tasty Apple Crumble and I could not resist the urge to make some cute little thanksgiving cupcakes.

As the guests started to arrive the table was crowded with wines, beers, homemade dishes and chit chat. we started with pumpkin soup served with warm walnut and chilli bread, then pigs in blankets served with pear and goat salad. This was quickly followed by a turkey to feed and army with, cranberry sauce, stuffing balls, yorkshire puddings, Blaukraut, caramelised carrots, nutmeg mashed potato, mini Brussel sprouts and homemade gravy. After all of this food people were employing different methods of stretching to make room for the onslaught of dessert. After much moaning and groaning, stomach rubbing and stretching we were ready for dessert. The apple crumble was warmed and went down a treat with the homemade cookie dough ice cream which arrived with another guest. The cupcakes sat on the table the little turkeys glaring at people while we all let our food babies settle, one by one during the evening the cupcakes started to disappear until people either fell asleep full of alcohol and food, or groaned about the sheer gluttony of Thanksgiving. The event lasted well into the early hours of the morning, and despite this being our first Thanksgiving we have ever experienced, it was probably the best we ever will. 16 homemade dishes, 13 guests, 12kg of turkey, 9 hours of fun, 3 Nationalities, a 2 bed apartment all held on one day in Stuttgart Germany.

German Thanksgiving

Just when we felt our weekend could not get any better, we burned off our turkey dinner at the local climbing hall on Sunday afternoon. Then meeting the same friends as the day before we attended the Esslingen Weihnachtsmarkt (christmas market). This was a delight the old town centre was lit up with tiny twinkle lights all the market stalls sold typical German goodies and christmas treats. The main centre of the market had a medieval theme which included a medieval game area, where children could don a wooden bow and arrow and attempt to shoot the witches hanging precariously in the distance. Mini catapults could be used to knock down the castle walls, and if this was not manly enough for the adults you could try your hand at throwing an axe into a wooden stump with a painted dart board. As we mosied round the stalls sipping gluhwein (mulled wine) we navigated from food stall to food stall, sampling dampfnodel, vollmilchschokolade snowballs, Currywurst and Schweinefleisch-Stick. When we were full and exhausted we retired to grumbles (Nicole and Gogi’s berlingo) and headed back to the apartment for our final night in Stuttgart. 

German Xmas Markets