Seven years ago, Aaron and I spent Thanksgiving surrounded by flower-studded hills and taller masts in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua. The night before, we’d met the chef on one of the neighboring megayachts, who informed us that each staff chef in the harbor would be making a turkey the next day in a kind of friendly competition. With our comparatively prospects for a Thanksgiving meal looking comparatively grim, we tried to engineer an invitation to this meal, but were predictably unsuccessful. Instead, we were left to scavenge what could be found stowed among the sawdust beneath our bunks and the pungent mystery of our ice box.
The resulting Frankenstein monster of macaroni & cheese spangled with tinned turkey still echos unpleasantly on my palate to this day.