Editor’s Note: This week we wanted to share this essay from Will’s sister Mariah, who spent Thanksgiving at Finca Gualfín… You can read more about her experiences of ranch life in the Calchaquí Valley and travels around the world by subscribing (free) here.
Thanksgiving morning at Gualfín.
Dear Reader,
Yesterday morning I rose early. It would be my first time cooking turkey and I needed to figure out what to do.
“Do you know how to cook a turkey?”, I asked Marta. She shook her head.
“No…”.
Adrien had bought two 5 kilo (10 pounds) birds for eleven people. We inspected the packaging and found that they recommended an hour of cooking per kilo.
I pulled out my phone, and found a recipe for Thanksgiving turkey. It told me to salt and pepper the fowls an hour before putting them into the oven. Then, melt butter with rosemary and lemon, and brush them with this mixture. Once the birds were in the oven, this exercise was to be repeated every forty five minutes. Easy enough.
I picked rosemary in the garden, cut the lemons, and put it all together in a pan with plenty of butter.
Marta and I sat down at the kitchen table, and I briefed her on our tasks. The fire in the horno de barro – mud oven – had to be lit, the bronze candle holders polished, napkins ironed, vegetables chopped, lettuce from the huerta picked, the table set, the boxes of miscellaneous objects in the “living” hidden away, and a picada – a plate of cheeses and cured meats to have with pre dinner drinks, prepared.
I had also brought the ingredients for her to make flan — a custard like dessert, served with dulce de leche.
To iron the napkins, a non electric iron was brought forth and coals from the fire placed inside.
An American friend was visiting.
“Are there any special dishes you like to cook for Thanksgiving?”, I asked.
“Not really…”, he replied. “But I can sous chef!”.
The three of us set to work. We chopped, picked, peeled, basted, arranged, and tidied all day.
Marta pulls the turkeys out of the mud oven for me to baste.
The Gualfín Thanksgiving Menu was as follows:
- Picada in the Gaucho Bar.
Drinks and picada in the Gaucho Bar before dinner.
- Oven roasted carrots drizzled with honey and olive oil, and sprinkled with cinnamon.
- Roast turkey with rosemary and lemon, and served with its juices.
- Fresh garden salad with greens from Marta’s garden.
- Peas and corn.
- Roasted whole sweet potatoes.
- Mashed potatoes.
- Marta’s flan with dulce de leche.
- Coca (dried leaves from the coca plant are used to help with altitude sickness and digestion) tea with mint.
- Our own pure Malbec wine, Tacana.
A bottle of our Tacana.
After dinner more wine was drunk, and songs were sung. A friend of ours from Alabama broke into a blues number a capella. I joined him on House of the Rising Sun.
After we finished our duet, he stood up and raised his glass.
“This has been a wonderful Thanksgiving.”, he said.
“Indeed it has.”, agreed a friend.
“Salud!” chimed in another.
Our Alabama friend downed his glass of red wine.
“And now my friends”, he concluded. “I think I’d better retire. Thank you, and goodnight!”
More to come.
Abrazos,
Mariah
Note: Click here to read more of Mariah’s journals from the Calchaquí & beyond…
