As you can imagine, Thanksgiving is not a holiday here. But given its importance back in the States, Katie and I wanted to have our own Thanksgiving dinner. We invited our friend Heather, whom we had met in our French class, and her husband Nick. They're both here in Toulouse for 3 months by way of NASA and the fine city of Houston, Texas, home to none other than my alma mater, Rice University. Whoo hoo! Nick actually works with a friend of mine from college who'll also be coming to Toulouse shortly. Also coincidentally, Nick and Heather both grew up in the Puget Sound-area (though it saddens me to say that they are Huskies). Along with Tom and Katie, I was actually the only non-Husky in attendance. Damn dawgs. But as my brother says, the Huskies put the 1 in stanfurd's 1-10 record. Wait, probably shouldn't jinx things before the Big Game... Go Bears!
Anyway, as most of you know I'm currently a man of the house (homme au foyer) so it was up to me to do most of the meal planning. It wasn't especially difficult since Heather and Nick brought salad, Katie found some nice wine, and Tom got a delicious apple tort and ice cream for dessert (don't think you can buy pumpkin pies). And making a turkey was out of the question since we don't have an oven. I bought a couple of roasted chickens from the local market instead and combined that with some stuffing, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, and gravy. Unfortunately I could not find cranberries or cranberry sauce anywhere (went to at least 5 supermarkets of various sizes in addition to the multitude of vegetable stands at our local public market) so we had to go without. I did buy some cranberry juice and dried cranberries to keep with the spirit--a weak substitute I'll admit, but what the hell (I did contemplate trying to heat up the cranberry juice, add some dried cranberries, and then thicken it but good taste got the better of me). On the plus side, I did find some American-style sliced white bread for the stuffing at the supermarket (I also saw some hamburger buns... will have to remember for 4th of July). Call me uncultured but I do not like stuffing made with corn bread or whole wheat bread. I suppose I could have cut up a baguette but I somehow suspect that even our newly-elected Democratic congress (uh-huh) wouldn't approve of such a culinary faux pas. Since we didn't have a turkey for gravy, Katie (resident gravy expert) got creative and purchased a jar of duck fat (which you can buy even at the local quickie mart) to mix with some chicken stock. The gravy was probably the most complimented dish of the evening! So all in all it was a good meal, plenty of food, and very enjoyable to share the evening with some fellow Americans--and Tom (he knows I'm just kidding). I'm also glad I didn't have to resort to the backup plan which was to hit the local McDonalds for dinner.
This morning, Black Friday, I woke up at 6 am and lined up in front of my favorite boulangerie, frantically dashed to the counter upon its opening, and demanded 3 for 1 baguettes!
Hope you all had a good holiday weekend! In the photo are: Tom, Heather, Nick, and Katie.
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