Gobbling Away in Aceh

Last year, I had a turkey sandwich at Caswell's with my boss on Thanksgiving Day. It was a rather forgettable Thanksgiving.

This year...did we put on a show!

A friend and I took off from work at 2:30pm and started cooking like a pair of madwoman. The 12.34lb turkey was tenderly massaged with butter and garlic and lovingly rubbed down with sage. It went in the oven promptly at 3:30pm. We then shifted our focus to the pumpkin (completely from scratch) and apple pies, the mashed potatoes and stuffing. We were sipping on white wine, had 2 ovens going, all 4 burners burning, and good cooking music blasting. We were on a roll!

Around 6:30, as we were basting our bird, we realized that the oven was no longer hot! We ran out of gas! Literally! By 7, a new gas tank had arrived and the bird continued roasting. By 8, the little temperature poppy thing was still unpopped and we were late! We took it out anyway and piled everything into a car and headed over to another friend's house to feast. While en route, the poppy thing popped up! We were oh so delighted (didn't really want anyone to get sick from an undercooked turkey!)

The turkey turned out beautifully and so did the mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce (all the way from Jakarta), 2 kinds of stuffing, grilled veggie, corn on a cob, pumpkin pie, apple pie, jell-0, and whipped cream!

Happy Turkey Day from Aceh!

Here are more photos from Thanksgiving in Aceh

Black Magic Woman

...or rather man. This was in the Jakarta Post today.

Witch Doctor Tries to Jinx Bush's Visit

A man claiming magic powers drank freshly slaughtered animal and snake blood Thursday as part of a ritual he said would jinx the upcoming visit of U.S. President George Bush.

Ki Gendeng Pamungkas slit the throat of a goat, a small snake and stabbed a black crow in the chest, mixed their blood with herbs before drinking the potion and smearing it on his face...he believed the ritual would succeed because "the devil is with me today."

He believed the ritual - performed around one kilometer from the palace in Bogor - would cause Secret Service agents guarding Bush to fall into a trance and believe the U.S. leader was under attack, causing chaos.

Penang Pics!

Wheeeeeew it's been a long week! It's been all work and no play for Sharon...well...I did take some time off Wednesday night to play some mah-jong, since all 3 of us picked up mah-jong sets in Penang last weekend.

Finally had some quiet time this evening and posted some of the good photos from the trip. Check them out!

Penang Bound!

After a very very long 4-day week, I'm going to Penang, Malaysia for the long weekend. Here's a recent article about Penang from the NY Times Travel section. In the article, it specificially mentions the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. That's where we're staying!!! Fatt huh???

Will take lots of pictures!