While growing up in the USA, Thanksgiving was one of my favorite times of the year. Living in Beijing and working at an international school, neither of the Canadian and US Thanksgiving holidays are days off from school. In general, those that celebrate Thanksgiving have two or more gatherings during the week of Thanksgiving, once at a nice restaurant, and once as a potluck at someone's home. Keeping with expat tradition, we gave Thanks twice last week.
Our first feast was on the evening of November 27th at a middle eastern restaurant called Zhatar. The co-owners of the restaurant both work at our school, and the husband of one of the owners is the Head Chef and Manager. About 50 people attended the private event, many of them from my school. The menu included two kinds of soup, babaganush, hummus, pita bread, zhatar, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potato, and three kinds of desert. The price was around $20 and included all you could drink softdrinks, wine, beer, and sangria. The food and drink were excellent, and being around our good friends, many of which will be leaving Beijing this year, made for a wonderful evening.
My friend Stephen who organized the event made a playful toast to recognize Gassan the chef, that went something like this...When I was thinking of a place to have Thanksgiving this year I thought, we need restaurant with a Palestinian chef, raised in Jordan and Italy, trained in Middle Eastern cooking, to prepare an American style Thanksgiving feast, and at Zhatar I found what I was looking for!
The success of this event shows that in Beijing, anything is possible!
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