It was the time of the year when birds migrate, bears hibernate and the salmons return to their spawning grounds. The trees put on their brief but splendid autumn display of yellow, pink, red and orange while the stores burst with nature’s bounty. It was time for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is as big an affair as Chinese New Year in Singapore. While I preferred to spend more time reflecting on God’s goodness, I ended up with too much grocery-shopping and cooking instead. No caterers, food centers or maids to ease the way, only rounds after rounds of potluck. Other than potluck for church meetings and our oldies cell, I was cooking and freezing food for Val and Victor because YK and I would be going away. Also I was sharing the job with Renee to cook Thanksgiving dinner for our YWA small group. Renee supplied the ham, green bean casserole and cookies while I did the turkey, sausage stuffing, cranberry sauce and sweet potato marshmallow pie.
In my first attempt at the sweet potato pie, I nearly set the house on fire. After the pie was baked, I had to brown the marshmallows under the grill for one minute. Distracted by another task, I slightly over-stretched my minute. When I opened the oven door, the pie was a dish of licking flames! With the smoke alarms madly shrieking, YK ran for the fire extinguisher while Victor charged out of his room. flushed with adrenaline I managed to grab the pie and put out the fire ahead of them. After recovering from the shock of fire-fighting, I removed the charcoal marshmallows from the pie and tried again with a new layer of snowy marshmallows. I would be a fool to burn it again. The YWAs called it smoked sweet potato pie but happily polished it off.
It was a Thanksgiving that I shall remember for a long time. Thank God I did not burn down the house!
