Turkey Hands and Apple Pie

Happy Thanksgiving from steamy Manila! In elementary school Thanksgiving tradition, we spent the evening as a cast tracing our hands on bright-colored paper, adding legs at the wrist and a beak on the thumb, turning them into the day of thanks Turkey Hand.
We then spent 30 minutes wandering around, writing on each person's sheet why we are thankful for him or her.

In the meantime, Yui and I wandered through grocery stores and bakeries all around the Ortigas Center, on a desperate hunt for Thanksgiving pie. We were having Filipino BBQ donated from a local restaurant... no mashed potatoes and gravy for us, so we wanted to have a special treat made of pie and cool whip, to remind us Americans of home.

But unfortunately, no such luck... lots of cakes and pastries, but we only found one pie, and it was an "egg pie" (more like quiche) which wasn't: A. Enough for the whole cast, nor B. anything close to what we were looking for to be a Thanksgiving dessert.

So, disappointed, we headed back to our meeting room at the Ortigas Foundation, until we looked up at the building right next door, and knew we had found the perfect substitute.

That's right, the Golden Arches of McDonalds were a small parking lot away, and we went straight inside and asked if it was possible to order 110 apple pies. The shocked cashier ran away to ask the manager, who came back laughing and said, "40 minutes, 40 minutes." And so it was that we had a little bit of America on Thanksgiving in the Philippines, thanks to McDonalds global domination. And I can't lie, after barbequed chicken, soy sauce and lots of white rice, the deep-fried individual apple pie tasted GOOD.