The Pavita

This weekend I will conquer: The Pavita.

In all my years of celebrating holidays and eating turkey, I have never actually cooked a turkey. Actually, let's be real - I have never made a Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner at all. There was this one time in college when my roommates and I hosted a Thanksgiving dinner - Julie and Sarah took care of the turkey (leading to much hilarity...) and I'm pretty sure we were all tipsy on wine as we made everything else. Point being, the only actual holiday dinner I hosted is such a blur I can't pull any helpful tips from the experience. Although from what I remember, the dinner was amazing.

So, in preparation for this Christmas, when we joyfully have the vast majority of both my and Jon's family joining us from the US - I need to practice. I mean really, they're all coming all the way to Argentina for the holidays - the least I can do is give them a proper holiday dinner, right? It's already 85 degrees and humid outside, with long summer nights and outdoor markets, basically the opposite of every Christmastime I've ever thought of, so a little taste of American-traditional Christmas is what I'm going for. And herein lies the complication.

For numerous reasons, "traditional" holiday dinners are just not the same here. First off, turkey is just not all that common. Grocery stores generally have turkey cold cuts and some places have turkey breasts in the meat department, but ham (or pork in general), beef and chicken are much more popular, so finding a whole turkey is a bit of a challenge. Also, when is the last time you decided in the middle of August to cook anything that takes hours in the oven? It's a bit of a dilemma, air conditioning vs. oven heat. And then to sit down to a huge, heavy meal when it's 90 degrees outside....you get my drift.

So, after feeling entirely too proud of myself for finding a turkey, borrowing a roasting pan, printing recipes, shopping for ingredients and looking up substitutions for the ingredients I couldn't find, all I really need to do now is practice my skills. This Saturday, some of our bravest friends are going to be my holiday dinner guinea pigs, while I try my hand at making a pavita.

That is, assuming, a pavita is actually a turkey.