A Hawaiian Thanksgiving

Our turkey roast and pork shoulder butt were cooked in a Hawaiian imu (pronounced ee-moo). Kailua High School hosts an athletic booster club fundraiser. They invite the public to purchase a $15 ticket to cook meat in the imu. They only sell 350 tickets, and we got one!

An imu is an outdoor underground traditional Hawaiian oven. This is how pigs, fish, and other meat are cooked for luaus. The meats are cooked under heated rocks. Steam is created by the vegetation placed in the imu, from ti leaves, coconut palms, and banana leaves.

The high school asked that we bring our meats in an aluminum tin, not to exceed 25 pounds. We prepared a turkey roast and a pork shoulder butt. Pork shoulder butt is traditional Hawaiian luau food. Hubs plucked ti leaves from a ti tree in our yard.

I called my neighbor and asked if she had any sea salt. She generously shared something so much better. For many years her husband's family has collected sea salt from rocks along the beaches. Think unprocessed, completely organic, straight from the sea. The salt was fine and crumbly, not dry and grainy. We placed the pork shoulder butt in foil, and rubbed it with salt and patted it with butter.
Next we wrapped the pork in ti leaves and closed it in foil.

I hacked some small apple banana leaves from a young banana tree in our yard.


We salted, buttered, and wrapped the turkey roast in banana leaves. We could have wrapped a whole turkey. Instead we prepared two types of meats.
We added four large sweet potatoes in our aluminum tray and we wrapped the whole package in foil for drop off.

Since Kailua is on the other side of the island, on the Windward side, Hubs, Son1, and Uncle T delivered the tray after their fishing adventure. They rented a Boston whaler, bought squid for bait, and grabbed some fishing poles. They only caught some love and family time.
They hurried from the Kaneohe Bay marina to drop off our tray. The drop off time was only 90 minutes long. They waited in a line, and high school students walked up to the car, took our tray, metal tagged it, and handed the Farmer men a claim number. Hubs, being the big fan of The Farmer Files that he is, asked the student to take some pictures of the imu for the rest of us. This is the bottom layer of the imu. The meats are placed on top, and then covered for steaming.
The next morning, Hubs cooked Thanksgiving pancakes before heading out to pick up the Thanksgiving meal. Pilgrim Farmer joined us.

Hubs, Uncle T, and the boys drove to the Windward side to collect our tray after breakfast. They drove all the way home, dropped off the tray, and trekked to the airport to pick up Grandma T. Finally, we unwrapped our meats and potatoes, and served Thanksgiving dinner. I unwrapped the meats, and they literally fell limp, juicy, salted, and mouthwatering to the tray.
These are the wrapped meats just before dinner.
While I was finishing the side dishes, Walking Bear and Grandma T started growling at one another. Better at one another than the cook. Well, we plumb stuffed ourselves til we couldn't breathe. If we ever move back to Hawaii we are cooking our dinner in the imu again. This was the first time we bought an imu ticket.

We took a family walk and enjoyed the Hawaiin trade winds before dessert. This was the first time Hubby's immediate family was together for a holiday in six years. We missed Aunt M but the boys couldn't get enough of Uncle T. We are thankful this year to be together for Thanksgiving.

There's always November!

This Thanksgiving I am particularly grateful for November.

Seven Novembers ago, Hubs walked into my classroom with some stapled papers. "I found this house! I know you are going to love it...!!!" It was not a good time. My class was full of parents and students working on a Veteran's Day project commemorating those who lost their lives at the Pentagon. I shooed him away, and promised to call in ten minutes during lunch. I called, and he was already writing an offer on the house without me seeing it. He was right, though. I loved it when I saw it.

We wrote a contingent offer because we needed to sell our current home. We were sweating bullets. Two months after 9/11 the market in the metro DC area declined, a terrible time to sell a home. But that November we sold our home in four days, and purchased the other home by the end of the year!

Fast forward nearly seven years. July, 2008 we listed our home in Hawaii. Just a few weeks later, the economy started to tank. We were slow to follow the mainland because our local economy was fairly strong. Over night our gas prices soared, groceries soared, tourism declined, and homes for sale just sat.

Hubs told the Powers that Be that we needed until November to sell our home in Hawaii. Our plan was to re-evaluate on November 30 if our home was not sold. When we felt down these past months, we reminded one another we had sold and bought a home in November seven years ago. "There's always November!"

Folks, it is November. We are in escrow in Hawaii. We thank God that we have a clear answer and direction. Now, my heart feeling major loss? Well, it is Thanksgiving, and we are only talking thankfulness today. So I will save those heavy feelings for when the packers come.

A Preschool Thanksgiving

Son1 had a Thanksgiving luncheon at preschool. First we created a Thanksgiving windsock with Son1 for craft time. Then each family placed a feather on this large turkey with their thanksgivings. Ohhh Hubby volunteered to fill out our feather with a twinkle in his eye, like he was going to take an evangelical opportunity. I suggested um, not now. I love Jesus, I do. I invited his teachers to our church for a Christmas outreach event. I am most comfortable, and often do share my faith in smaller settings. I just didn't want the plan of salvation on a turkey feather at that moment. Shoot me, save the turkey, true confessions of a born again that is sometimes reluctant to share Jesus. My husband generally doesn't have that issue. It must be very freeing and I ought to take some lessons. I took one look at that yellow feather, and I thought I recognized the handwriting. "I thank God for...His Son, Jesus Christ, my family, and His many Blessings!...." I stopped reading, went up to Hubby, and said I wish he wouldn't have written that. He gave me a perplexed look. Stomach turn. I went back to finish reading the rest of the yellow feather that thanked the families....and on and on.....the teacher had written the feather! Boy I was embarrassed of myself for my shyness and proud of her all at the same time. Lesson learned. Then I looked for very similar writing on the blue feather that thanks God for our preschool teachers, and our family, and la la la that Hubby wrote.

Before we ate, his preschool teacher asked for a moment of silence where we remembered our forefathers and why they came to this country (uh hem, religious freedom that she all but mentioned), asked us to bow our heads, and then concluded us with AMEN. That is otherwise known as a prayer to me. And I'm so cool with that, particularly outside of a Christian environment. There is no way I would have gotten away with doing the same, teaching in conservative VA, where there is a daily moment of silence in the public schools.

All of the families participated in creating a knock down luncheon buffet. There was local food, fruit, pizza, hot dogs, salads, breads, desserts...and a ton of other stuff I can't remember.

This is our family photo with Roaring Lion. That is his Natvie American name for the Thanksgiving play.

A Little People Thanksgiving

Yup. I got the set available only online. He can totally reinact the whole thing...minus the religious freedom part of it. Sigh...maybe when he is four. Now you know that will require purchasing the Little People Mayflower set....