joyeux thanksgiving

Salut!

Happy belated Thanksgiving and Black Friday to you all!

As I said in an earlier blog post, Laura and Mireille love the scene in Friends where Joey puts the turkey on his head, and therefore they wanted to have their very own “Friends Thanksgiving.” We decided to celebrate our Thanksgiving on Black Friday (since we were all working on Thursday, but I only have a half day Friday so I could cook all afternoon).  And so the fun began.  Let’s just say, it wasn’t the easiest meal to make, but I think it turned out pretty well!

As Thanksgiving approached, Mireille worked very hard to get all the ingredients necessary because most of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes have ingredients that are not necessarily common in France.  This was the first challenge: to find the ingredients in Issoudun.  We found that turkeys aren’t available until the middle of December, marshmallows exist only in size XXXL, and cranberries are completely foreign.  Miraculously, she tracked down a small turkey, marshmallows that were a M-L size, and dried cranberries.

The total cook time for all of the thanksgiving meal was about 8 hours.  After video-chatting with the Pardo/Ruffin side of the family on Thursday evening, the cooking commenced.  I plumped the cranberries back up to an almost normal size, and then made cranberry dressing.  I also made a chocolate pecan chess pie…this brings me to my second challenge: measurements.  Given the grandeur of the meal and the fact that I didn’t want to mess it up, I decided to be ultra American, to reject the metric system, and to stick with the usual “cups” and “tablespoons.”  My cup measurer was a real teacup from the pantry and my tablespoon was a large soupspoon.  Good thing Mom taught me to eyeball measurements!  

Friday, I started with the dressing, then moved to the sweet potatoes, and then to the turkey.  If something looked too wet, I added flour.  It something looked too dry, I added chicken broth.  Given how little I actually followed the Thanksgiving recipes, I’m surprised that the dishes actually turned out.  The gravy was a bit more white than brown, but beyond that it all seemed and tasted like normal!  Here are some cooking pictures:

My plumped cranberries and walnuts simmering

1) There is actually still dirt covering the potatoes

2) that is my cup measurer

Mid-mashing the sweet potatoes

Laura was in charge of the marshmallows!

We found a tiny turkey!

The first turkey I've ever cooked!  Not as good as Dad's, but still pretty tasty!

This is evidence of how great the Boulot/Lefevres are...

I mentioned, in passing, Uncle Jack's Bloody Marys and Mireille bought ingredients to make our own!

Finally, at 8:00 p.m. we gathered around the table in the usual Thanksgiving manner.  They seemed to like everything, but they particularly liked the cranberries, and the sweet potatoes were a big hit.  Apparently Pascal even told Mireille this morning that the dinner last night was "agréable" (agreeable), and he isn't usually one to throw out compliments!  Here are some pictures of the meal:

The sign Laura made for the front door.

My pretty cranberries.

The delicious sweet potatoes.

                                   Before                                                                                   After

The chef with the food

From top to bottom:  Salad, sweet potatoes, turkey, cranberry dressing, gravy, and dressing

                              Before                                                                              After

Pascal waiting for the Turkey, Mireille cutting the Turkey, Friends playing in the background

The pie!

And finally, Laura caught onto the post-thanksgiving part quite well.  I think she discovered the natural seditive that’s in the turkey…

I hope that everyone had an equally nice Thanksgiving!

Keep in touch!