A Oaxacan Thanksgiving

How we celebrated Thanksgiving in Oaxaca, Mexico

Happy Monday, and hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving last week. Do you still have leftovers, or are they all gone at this point?

Since about 2016 or 2017 we haven’t stayed in the U.S. for Thanksgiving. Even though it’s one of our favorite holidays food-wise (give us all the sides), it’s a great time to travel internationally. International plane tickets and hotels are affordable during this time, and the weather is still pretty nice in many parts of the world. We love traveling to Asia during this time of year.

Because of COVID, we obviously took a break from this Thanksgiving travel tradition, but we’re back at it this year and celebrated Thanksgiving in Oaxaca, Mexico. Here’s how we managed to eat a traditional Thanksgiving meal…

A few days before Thanksgiving, we stopped at a nano brewery for an afternoon break from walking around. As luck would have it, this brewery (La Santísima Flor de Lúpulo), and the attached Gourmand Delicatessen, are owned (or partly owned) by a woman from La Crosse, WI, and they were taking reservations for a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. We were giddy and immediately signed up, but had no idea how good the food would be.

Spoiler alert: it was INCREDIBLE!

On the menu:

• Oven-roasted turkey with herbs and citrus fruits

• Mashed potatoes with garlic and turkey gravy

• Wild rice stuffing

• Green bean casserole

• Candied yams

• Pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream and a cappuccino

• Old Fashioned cocktails made with local Sierra Norte whiskey (the drink looks sweeter and more cherry-forward than it actually was.)

We don’t really like turkey, and we loved this turkey! The sides tasted just like we had made them, and we were so happy to have this familiar taste of home for the holiday. We’re a bit homesick at the moment…

Just look at the pure joy on Chris’ face 😍.

We hope you were able to relax and spend time with family and friends. We’ll be sending out our Mexico City travel guide later this week and are headed to Tulum for some R&R.

Take care, and we’ll talk to you soon!