Thanksgiving

Today in my shopping basket: Roquefort, Comte (cheese), Lindt dark mint chocolate, and a hyacinth bulb.

Woman in front of me: A Bordeaux, a single sausage, some mozarella.

Maybe we should get together and have a potluck.

Still on the subject of food, this past weekend, like a good American, I celebrated Thanksgiving  not once but twice...back to back. I just unbuttoned my pants. It assure you it was worth pushing through that uncomfortably stuffed sensation  to show those frogs what we're made of - As though they don't already have an awfully skewed view of the correlation between "American" and "obese" and that one of the first things we are acredited with when presented as "American" is he who bequeathed fast food to the developed, and undeveloped world. ANYWAY. I had to show them that we can stuff our faces and get obesce with more than just "McDo" but also turkey, and stuffing, and mashed potatoes, and pies...

Friday we celebrated with a kind of French/American collaboration at an obliging friend's parents house. We were 25 and for the diversity in the kitchen had a surprisingly spot-on rendition including 2 turkeys and all the appropriate sides. Greatest surprise: Stuffing with sausage, celery, mushrooms and dried cranberries. Biggest disappointment: an attempt at pecan pie - it's just not the same without corn syrup.

I unfortunately was unable to procure a turkey for the dinner I hosted chez nous on Saturday. When I went to the poultry woman at the market in St. Cyprien and asked about ordering a turkey she looked at me as though I had 2 heads assuring me that it was impossible in all of France to find a turkey before Christmas, the only sensible time anyone would want one. I badly wanted to prove her wrong but instead she proposed 2 lovely farm raised chickens that I took her up on. My friend Helen whose teaching a few hours outside the city came for the weekend and helped me cook for Saturday. We did the produce markets in the morning and that afternoon prepared, ahem: these excellent balsamic braised brussel sprouts with bacon bits and breadcrumbs, a one hit wonder cauliflower gratin, a pumpkin pie that I made from the single can of pumpkin I trafficked from the US, astutely remembering the battle of Lindsay v. Raw Pumpkin from Thanksgiving 2010, and a French silk chocolate pie topped with homemade whipped crean, late raspberries, and hazelnuts. Where are my stretch pants?

My friends brought stuffing, mashed potatoes, creamed sinach and we roasted the chickens with rosemary and thyme.I always thought it was about the sides anyway, n'est pas?

I bought these tiny pumpkins to decorate the table that I'm going to try to cook tonight and stuff with roquefort and leftover bread crumbs. I refuse to be squashed-out just yet!

A bientôt!