MASALA TURKEY

We went to a Desi (South Asian) turkey eating in Houston on Thursday. This event was at my husband’s friends place (an old friend from Lahore) in League City TX, near Galveston. They have an 18 month old son. Another old friend came from Dallas (also from Lahore…college friend). This couple have a daughter almost Amani's (my younger daughter) age. Hadia, my eldest, played the role of baji and baby sitter. I am so glad she did and enjoyed it as well. I was worried that she’d be bored and won't let me enjoy either. I had asked her to pack a few books to read i.e. in case if she got bored but shuker hea she enjoyed a lot.

The menu was a bit weird though. Turkey, stuffing, baked potatoes etc, BBQ chicken, chappal kebabs and chicken karhai. I still don’t understand what were they thinking when they planned this menu. It was a potluck sort of thing...in such a way that everyone had to cook something (not brining a dish but cooking it there) I just made a Baseesa (corn meal cake) at home instead of making it there. My husband helped them grill the chicken tikkas. Another friend from Houston who did not bring his American wife with him (don’t know why) cooked chicken karhai or maybe he brought it cooked. The friend from Dallas made chappal kebabs. When the food was served I just could not make up my mind what to eat first. There was so much to eat and then the thought struck me that everything at the table was cooked by a bunch of men...wondering if they had washed their hands before cooking I tried my best to eat a little of everything at the table. The chappal kebabs were the best and of course my cake :) This is all about the food.

We all stayed up till late at night. It was very difficult to put the kids to bed especially my little one and the daughter of the friends from Dallas. They were dancing all the time pretending to be the princesses. I am so glad that they made good friends and played together all the time. Finally, after much talking and pushing and bribing I succeeded to put them to bed around 12 but they slept around 1 am. The dads stayed up all night. They went out around 3 AM to check out the thanksgiving sales…came back when they saw a huge number of people sitting outside all the stores...some were grilling and enjoying themselves sitting there all night for the store to open at 6 am so they could be the first ones to get something from the very limited number of items. I would never go and sit all night even if they gave me things for free.

The next day we decided to take the kids to zoo but there were chances of rain so we went to Chucky Cheeses instead. The kids enjoyed a lot and I enjoyed even more. From there went to a Middle Eastern grocery store plus Deli. Had some great chicken shewarmas and lamb shanks, did some grocery and said good bye to each other. When we got back home we found that one of our fish had died ... poor fish this one was the most active one...the remaining two, which survive from the original six, seem so quiet and slow or maybe they are still in mourning. Or maybe they know their time is near too…Huh! Huh!