2 Thanksgivings

Apparently, being out of the country does not exclude you from US only holidays. We not only scraped together one Thanksgiving meal - we had two! Of course, it wasn't the same without family, but we did have a double dose of friends.

First Thanksgiving - Wednesday, our apartment with English and South American friends. I only had a half day of classes, and spent the afternoon cooking things I thought would give them a good idea of what typical Thanksgivings are like. Basically, we introduced them to the art of rendering a vegetable unrecognizable by smothering it with cream, cheese and/or sugar. On the menu: stuffed mushrooms, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, and because turkey was really difficult to find, steak. Ryan left work early to help me, and ended up baking the apple pie. It was hard coming up with typical dishes... some of the ingredients aren't available (like anything in a can), and vegetables are often seasonal, so I had to make a first list along with a couple of backups. Then, to determine which recipe I was going with, I'd try to find the main ingredient first. Take the green bean casserole for example. First, I had to find a recipe that didn't include cans of cream of mushroom soup or a French fried onion topping. Then, I had to make sure I could actually buy green beans. The first two grocery stores didn't have any, but I knew there was a last resort option... a frou-frou veg shop, where I did find the elusive fresh beans. Enough for a casserole only costs you $17 - thanks Switzerland! It went on like that throughout the afternoon. I went through the network of grocery stores, trying to find enough ingredients to complete a dish. It was like a scavenger hunt, and when I was finished, weighted down with bags full of groceries, I felt like a winner! Here we are plating up, and finally sitting down to dinner.






Second Thanksgiving - Thursday, with our American and Parisian neighbors in their apartment. Our American neighbor was adamant about having turkey. This is not a temporary rotation for him... Europe is his home now, so I think he needs to hold on to the details of American tradition a little more than we do. Thanks to his hard work and determination, plus a trip to Italy, we had a turkey! And his grandmother's stuffing as one of the sides (we could have used that at our first Thanksgiving).


Things I still missed... the Turkey Bowl, Mossy's stuffed mirliton, Memere's mirliton casserole, meat dressing, and green beans with artichokes, Cissy's pecan pie, Bill's shrimp remoulade and crabmeat ravigote.

But maybe next year I'll remember our expat holiday and miss that too. The turkey won't be Italian. The conversation topics probably won't include Pablo Escobar. And we certainly won't have Titi watching us eat, waiting for crumbs to fall.