Being back home certainly has some advantages. One of the best is sharing holidays, like Thanksgiving, with family and friends. We were certainly quite thankful to spend Thanksgiving with them this year vs. being 6,000 miles away in the Jordanian desert. When we were in Petra, Jordan, on what to everyone else it was just another Thursday night, 
we found ourselves spending half the night struggling to find something that was not made from chickpeas to eat for dinner and end up settling for a chicken kebap sandwich, because we realized it was about as close to turkey as we were going to get.
Another lesson I have taken away from our trip is to appreciate the vast variety of food available to people in the developed world. Because I have always had nearly any cuisine imaginable close at hand, I did not appreciate what variety my palate craves until we had spent two months in the Middle East, eating a variation of some kind of chickpea spread, pita bread or kepab at nearly every meal. And while many of these dishes were delicious, I challenge any Westerner to eat the same 3-4 dishes for every meal,
including breakfast, for two months and then on Thanksgiving not go a little crazy looking for something different and traditionally American.
Being home this year did not disappoint. We had quite the spread at two family gatherings in New York. The first was in New York City and the second was a short Metro North ride north to the town of Irvington. The picture to the left is just a glimpse of the traditional and variety packed gastronomic delights that awaited our first major holiday since our return home.
What strange stand-ins for traditional foods have you made while traveling abroad on American holidays? What lengths did you go to secure a suitable substitute? Let’s hear it in the comments.
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