In most countries, people usually eat traditional food on special holidays. A special day in the United States is Thanksgiving. It is always on the fourth Thursday in November,     46     is a time to give thanks for food in the autumn. At this time, people also remember the first travelers from England that came to live in the US about 400 years ago. These travelers had     47     long and hard winter, and many of them died. In the next autumn, they gave thanks for life and food in     48     new home. These days, most Americans still     49     this idea of giving thanks by having a big meal at home with their family. The     50     dish of this meal is almost always turkey, a large bird.

Do you know how to     51     a turkey on Thanksgiving? Here is one way.     52    , mix together some bread pieces, onions, salt and pepper. Next, fill the turkey     53     this bread mix. Then,     54     the turkey in a hot oven and cook it for a few hours. When it is ready, place the turkey on a large plate and cover it with gravy. Finally, cut the turkey into thin pieces and eat the meat with       55     like carrots and potatoes.

Kiran Alwy, a teenage girl, recently went home with 10, 000 dollars after winning on Food Network’s Chopped Junior, a popular show in the US. On Chopped Junior, kids aged from 9 to 13 get a basket of unknown ingredients（食材）and have to make a dish in 30 minutes.

In the show, Alwy made lemonade, lobster tail（龙虾尾）and white chocolate macaroni（通心粉）and cheese into a lobster mac-and-cheese. She also made a fruit salad. Her ability of improvising（即兴创作）helped make her a winner.

Learning to cook became important to Alwy after her parents got divorced. “I had to cook for myself. My mom doesn’t know how to cook,” Alwy said.

Alwy learned how to cook from her father, Moid, and her grandmother. They taught her how to make traditional Pakistani fish when she was 8.

Her parents let her start using the stove. Her dad taught her how to use a knife. Alwy would practice by following recipes.

“The recipes helped me learn a lot,” Alwy said. “I also learned how to improvise according to different recipes because I saw what common ingredients were in things.” So at home, Alwy would try cooking with whatever they had on hand.

Outside the kitchen, Alwy, as a middle school student, has a busy school life. She swims and plays the violin twice a week. She plays with friends, gets good grades and watches TV—mostly cooking shows.