Thanksgiving & Marburg Market

Guten Tag!

You may recall that on Thanksgiving this year Eric and I were moving to the New Apartment! Not a very special holiday for us. We decided to rectify this by hosting a slightly late Thanksgiving in our new apartment for all our German friends! We moved in on Friday and hosted the event on Wednesday. It was a bit stressful getting everything put away in time as well as shopping for the meal. It was also stressful because our apartment is very tiny and we were having 20 people over!!!

Eric and I provided the bird, stuffing, gravy, and pecan pies. We sent out an email with the other dishes along with recipes to follow. Our friends then signed up for a dish. Cooking all this food turned out to be extremely ambitious on our part for a few reasons:

1.) This was the first thing we cooked in our new kitchen!
2.) This was the first large bird we have ever cooked!
3.) The kitchen was very poorly equipped.

On the day of there was a worrisome amount of Google searches happening such as 'how to use a meat thermometer', 'what to do if you don't have a bird rack', and 'how to cook a goose'.

Here is our bird all ready to go into the oven. We could not find a turkey and so this is a goose. It was not as large as we would have liked but our oven is small so we did not want to risk it not being able to fit it in. Our solution to not having a meat rack (thank you internet!) is sliced potatoes and onions- you get the bonus of veggies cooked in meat juice.

Here are my 3 bowls of stuffing. We did not have a large mixing bowl so I had to use my three largest containers to get it all prepped.

We did it! We successfully cooked a goose and it was done on time! Sadly I don't have a picture of the bird done but I have these two middle stages.

 Here are some Thanksgiving pictures.

We used this empty shelving unit for the desserts. Germany doesn't have pie pans! Eric had to cook his pecan pies in spring form pans- he also used a pastry croissant crust. The pumpkin pies got creative and were baked in bread pans.

Overall Thanksgiving was a huge success! Everyone had a good time and ate way too much food. People stayed until almost 2 am, the sign of a good party.

Just a few short days later our friends the Grözingers came to visit us. They had never been to Marburg before and decided to check out the Christmas market. The Marburg Christmas market is much smaller than the Frankfurt market but still has the same pleasant holiday atmosphere. And sugar, lots and lots of sugar.

When the Grözingers arrived they brought a massive amount of presents! Some highlights are the homemade Christmas cookies, cider from the harvest, jams and lots of spätzle!

On our way to the market Alyssa discovers a real Marburg treat.

 Christmas Market Time!

Elke bought a delicious deep fried potato skewer and shared with us.

 Germans love everything Bratwurst.

Group photo.

Scenic overlook and coffee break.

Gluhwein!!!

The next day we went to the schloss!! Eric and I have been up to the castle many times but this was our first time inside.

Fire breathing dragon or green eating donkey?

I found Marburg Pottery- which I did not know existed.

This is a cool picture of Marburg from the 1800's. It is special because this is the exact location of our first apartment!

There was a Brother's Grimm exhibit at the castle (no surprise!). We spun the wheel to find out which fairy tale character we were. Eric got 'Mother' and I got 'Prince'!

Here is some random exhibit stuff. The castle had a little bit of everything.

Eric is deeply contemplating whether this painting is a man or woman. 'She' is wearing a dress but has a 5 o clock shadow...

After the schloss the Grözingers treated us to a delicious lunch!

Thank you Grözingers for a great holiday weekend- Auf Wiedersehen!