Thanksgiving in Hawaii

Thanksgiving in our new “home” was interesting!

We got up early in the morning and went for a run around Kapiolani Park (we figured we wouldn’t make the official 10 mile loop that was going on but we did around 4-5 miles). From there we went to the beach and hung out for a few hours relaxing and enjoying the sunshine. Nick did a little snorkeling – it’s surprising that even at Waikiki you can still find some fish hanging out in and around the coral…from there we had a little lunch at Lulus. I think it’s a Waikiki version of the Avy: popular with locals and tourists; staff can keep their surfboards in the building; football on the TV; decent food, decent prices, and of course Stella on tap! What more can you ask for? We had the grilled mahi mahi sandwich with fries – delicious!

After a couple of Stella’s I decided I needed a walk before I could go back and cook Thanksgiving dinner, so we strolled down the beach walk for a little while people watching and laughing at the huge numbers of people crammed into a tiny space on the beach in central Waikiki.

Back at the condo, we were preparing baked potatoes (no masher), green beans and brussels sprouts with lime, stuffing, gravy and of course turkey. I had been able to find some turkey tenderloins the day before that would perfectly in our little toaster over! We were going to wash it down with a bottle of wine and finish up with the pumpkin cheesecake I had bought (and which cost more than a bottle of vodka for our morning Bloody Mary’s) at the Cheesecake factory.

We prepared the turkey with oil, garlic and onion, started cooking the baked potatoes and got the veggies ready. Then we blew a fuse! Apparently, the condo is all on one circuit and having the toaster oven, microwave, TV (for football!) and air conditioner on at one time was a little overtaxing to the system! No problem said Nick, I’ll find the panel and flip the switch….not so easy. Eventually he had to contact the building managers’ - only to find out that our panel is actually located in the condo next door – and they wouldn’t allow us access! They did give us the number of the guy that lives their though and told us to tell him to come back and let us in…slight problem: He was gone til Sunday…no way were we waiting until Sunday to eat the Thanksgiving meal that was already starting to smell so good!!! Fortunately Gary (our neighbour) gave us permission to go in and flip the breaker. Nick went back to the managers who had said they had no way of getting in and they agreed to open up the unit.

Yeah – back to cooking! Dinner turned out to be excellent and we were glad we had decided to make the effort despite the fact that we didn’t think we could manage the whole thing – just shows what you can do with a microwave, hot plate and toaster oven! And yes, the cheesecake was good, but not as good as the ginger pumpkin cheesecake that I usually make at Thanksgiving!

The end result!