Thanksgiving has always been a time for me to be with my family. Every year, I would wake up at seven in the morning to go to my grandparent’s house to eat vinha d’alhos, a portuguese pork dish with a strong garlic-vinegar flavor. It has always been one of my favorite dishes, but due to how much effort it is to make, my grandpa only makes the dish twice a year: for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Upon arriving to his house in the early morning, I go straight to the kitchen table, grab a sweet bread roll, smash the roll down and place the pieces of pork between the bread before chomping down. There are always at least two pans full of the dish, but there are rarely leftovers. Throughout the first few hours of the day, family members and friends roll through the house to watch the Macy’s day parade (and the re-run) and converse with each other. Family debates gone awry, babies crawling around, and my grandpa smirking at his own jokes sums up my typical Thanksgiving morning.
After a few hours at Grandpa Fernandes’s house, my parents and siblings made our way to our other grandparent’s house. There we dug into traditional Filipino food such as pancit, arrozcaldo, fried bangus and more. Though already full from the morning feast, I can’t help but grab seconds of banana lumpia before retiring to the television room to watch cartoons with my younger cousins.
Finally, for dinner, we would make our way again to Grandpa Fernandes’s house for the typical Thanksgiving meal. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, and of course pie. After a day full of eating and full of family interactions, I am ready to go home and fall asleep.
I never expected to miss these day-long adventures of traveling from house to house. I knew that I would be able to experience the same tradition again on Christmas Eve, the following day on Christmas, and then a few days later on New Year's, so when it came time to leave for college I had no doubt I would be fine until I came home again.
The time before Thanksgiving was harder than I had anticipated. By week nine of school, everyone is exhausted, grumpy, cold, and begging to go home. Most people who will be going home cannot wait, and are not afraid to share that. I would be equally as excited to go home, just as I am excited to go home after finals. However, as everyone made their plans for home, looked forward to the home-cooked meals and family time, I was left to figure out what I would do to not get bored over the week-long break that Santa Clara gives us.
Last year my friend Ashley came up to visit Santa Clara, so my friend Matt and I decided this year we would make the trip to San Luis Obispo. The idea of three college kids trying to make a Thanksgiving dinner in a small college town in the middle of nowhere did not excite me, but getting away from Santa Clara and exploring a new place seemed fun.
A few weeks before we were set to leave, Matt told me we would be going down to LA for the first few days of our break. Our friends Kelly and Derek who had hosted us over spring break said we could catch a ride down with them.
We left on Saturday morning. Kelly, her mom, Derek, Matt, and I all squished in a tiny Volkswagen. Matt and I had managed to fit our large suitcases filled with clothes for the turbulent weather into her tiny trunk. Kelly and her mom drove the duration of the ride, and we finally arrived late that night.
Sunday:
My friends and I love boba, so it was only fitting that our first stop in LA was a popular boba shop. Half and Half was a place that we intended on visiting during the spring but never got around to it. It was 45 minutes away from Kelly’s house, so we planned to stop there before getting lunch at downtown LA. We got the Half and Half and saw that there were a lot of people taking pictures outside of the store. As we entered, we realized that the line extended from the register, out the back door, and around the corner. I was sure that the tea would be good.
I spent the next 10 minutes in line debating which drink to get: I knew I would probably only be here once, so there was a lot of pressure to make the right decision. I settled on a jade oolong milk tea (oolong tea with green tea).
With boba in hand, we made our way to downtown LA to try Tsujita Ramen. We each ordered our own tsukamen: a thick ramen broth with thick noodles for dipping served on the side.
I had been wanting to visit a friend that goes to school in the area, so we stopped at Loyola Marymount University after our filling lunch. Originally the plan was to get ice cream with Erin, but we were still so full from lunch that we asked her to give us a tour of her school. After a few hours of walking, catching up, and meeting up with a few other friends, we were finally ready to eat again. All the ice cream places were a long drive away from her campus, so we settled on a small Mexican ice cream shop only about 10 minutes away.
Though not as cute as many of the places that we wanted to try, the store had unique flavors of fruits that I had never heard of, and flavors that I didn’t expect to be good in ice cream, such as smoked milk.
After a long day of exploring, we were ready to head back to Kelly’s to rest up.
Given that I normally workout every day, I was determined to find some time to exercise while on break. I asked Kelly if she knew of any places to go running, so she brought me to a path along the cliffs of Rancho Palos Verdes. The air was crisp and cool. After running for a couple of miles, I decided to walk along the path to really take in the views. Over the edge of the cliff was clear turquoise water with kelp floating sporadically near the shore. Seals periodically popped their heads out of the water before diving back down.
Our stomachs were growling after our morning workout, so we quickly showered and hopped back in the car to go to Venice Beach. There, we tried Gjelina’s pizza, which Kelly’s mom had been insisting we try before we even arrived in LA on Saturday night. We walked along Abbot Kinney, peering into all of the cute shops on our way to the pizza place. According to our phones, we were close, but there was no sign to distinguish the store, only a window that showed a mass of people in front of a counter, and a group of people kneeling close by munching on delicious smelling pizza.
We each struggled to decide on what pizza to get. Kelly ordered a mushroom pizza that her mom insisted would taste great, and Matt ordered a pizza that reminded me of high-end garlic cheese toast. I stood at the front of the line, looking at all the enticing salad cases behind the cashier. “What is in the salad third from the left?” I asked. The cashier explained that it was a balsamic Brussel sprouts salad with various cheeses and meats. As I was about to order a plate of that, a new pizza was being brought out with leafy greens and what looked like feta cheese. As I stood conflicted, the cashier recommended I try the pizza given that it was my first time visiting the store. She quickly threw it in the oven and made Matt and Kelly’s pizza. We ate our food at the cute patio on the side of the store: there were wooden terraces with vines growing on them along with stone benches and stools.
After we ate, we looked around at more stores before heading to Korea town to try yet another food place: The Bun Shop. This Asian fusion restaurant serves various meats in white Chinese buns. Because we were only getting the buns as a snack, Kelly, Matt, and I shared three buns filled with pork belly, Kalbi, and spicy pork.
After we headed back to Kelly’s to pack to move to Derek’s house. Kelly’s parents encouraged us to come back for the rest of Thanksgiving, which we would have loved to if we had not already agreed to stay with our friend at Cal Poly SLO.
Tuesday:
I tried to wake up early to go for a run along the beach that Derek lives close to. However, after snoozing my alarm a few times I decided that sleeping in would be nice.
After the first few days spent getting an actual taste of LA, Matt and I made one last stop with Kelly and Derek to Din Tai Fun, a well known Chinese dumpling chain restaurant, and Zero Degrees, a new boba and ice cream café. We filled our stomachs before hitting the road for Cal Poly SLO.
Our friend Brian Chen was also driving up to SLO to pick up a friend, so after lunch we caught a ride with him. The ride was only supposed to take three to four hours, but ended up taking close to six because of the traffic. By the time we got to SLO it was late and we were exhausted, so we unpacked before going to sleep.
Wednesday:
The next few days were again filled with food and fun activities. I woke up early in the morning to go for a run around this new campus, quickly figuring out where main buildings and food places were. Ashley then gave us an official tour of the entire school which took about three hours trekking up and down the hills, wandering through the empty buildings. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like if I went to the huge school.
After a quick break back at his apartment, we went to downtown San Luis Obispo with his roommate to eat at Firestone Grill, a place known for their Tri-tip sandwich. We decided to sit outside in the cold, but luckily the tender meat was sandwiched between two warm buttery buns and though the sandwich was huge, the food was light and easy to eat. Before heading back to school we stopped at a few candy stores and an ice cream shop. It was still early, though it was dark enough to be midnight, so we stayed up watching scary movies and preparing our turkey for Thanksgiving.
We each had our own family recipe, provided by our worried parents knowing that this was the first time we would be cooking a Turkey. Ashley’s father gave an intense recipe requiring the Turkey to sit in water infused with citrus, spices, and onions. We quickly made the mix in a large bucket that they normally used to store beverages. Matt and I had brought a recipe provided by Derek’s mom, which did not require any of the prep we did. After putting the turkey in the mixture, we closed it up and put it near an open window to keep it cold throughout the night.
Thursday:
We woke up early and moved the turkey from its strange bath to the refrigerator before heading out on a morning hike. We walked towards the fields at the back of the school, past strange sculptures in what is called the “Arch Graveyard” and up towards the hills. Every once in a while a cow our goat came into view on the hills. There was a large hill with a lone tree on the top, which Ashley said we were going to. The wind and cold air made the hike a bit uncomfortable, but the view at the top of the hill was breathtaking. Sitting on the swing attached to the tree, it felt like I was floating above the small town of San Luis Obispo. After taking a few pictures, we went back down to continue preparing our Thanksgiving meal.
We put the Turkey in the oven when we got back to his room. It was only two, so we had a lot more time to kill before we had to prepare any other food. After a few hours of watching youtube videos and doing homework, which I had been putting off until then, we started preparing our vegetables, potatoes, and ham. I made balsamic vinegar Brussel sprouts with lemon and olive oil, which I had been craving ever since Gjelina’s pizza. Sam boiled and mashed the potatoes. Jason, Ashley’s other suitemate, prepared the purple carrots. With all the other food prepared, all we had to do was wait until the Turkey was done before we could bake everything else.
So we waited.
And waited, and waited. We checked the turkey, pricking it where the leg met the body. Pink juices flooded out, and we reluctantly added another half hour to the timer and waited more.
Once the juices ran clear, we pulled the Turkey out of the oven and put in the ham and other veggies. An hour later all the food was ready to eat. Though there were only five of us, we had enough food to feed at least 20 people. We filled our plates time and time again until we could no longer eat anymore.
With our stomachs full, I suddenly remembered that we forgot all about the pumpkin pie in the fridge. We took the pie out, filling our plates once more with it and vanilla ice cream before settling down to watch another scary movie.
After the filling dinner, we decided to go on a late night hike to the Arch Graveyard where we climbed on various sculptures before deciding it was much too cold to be outside.
The next few days we spent going on more beautiful hikes, visiting the bay, and eating more and more food. Luckily Ashley brought us to Cal Poly’s huge recreational center on Saturday morning to burn off only a fraction of the calories we consumed the entire break. Later that day, Matt and I said our goodbyes and boarded an Amtrak bus back to Santa Clara.
Though my Thanksgiving was unconventional, and nothing like the Thanksgivings I have back home, I would not trade it for anything else. I am thankful to have been able to spend my break with great friends eating delicious food, and going on spontaneous adventures throughout California.
