Thanksgiving Dinner

I had a wave of culture shock come over me this week as I tried to make our traditional Thanksgiving meal for my family here in France.

First of all, I was told to order a turkey at least a week in advance, since the French don't really eat a lot of turkey except for at Christmas time. So I did that. I special ordered a turkey and told them it was going to be for 7 people, but they must have thought I said 27 because when I went to go pick up my turkey, the butcher threw a 14 kilo. turkey up on the scale, which by the way, for all of us Americans who haven't caught up with the rest of the world in measurement, 14 kilos = 30 pounds! There was no way I was taking that whole thing home with me. One, because that's too heavy to carry for a mile down the road, and two, there's no way it would fit in the small european-style oven. So, since I had special ordered it, the only option was to either make the butcher really mad by not taking it or, to have them chop it in half. I chose to keep the butcher happy (though inside I was thinking, it's just not going to look as pretty chopped in half, and how am I suppose to stuff it that way?) Nonetheless, it was turkey, and after it was cooked it actually didn't taste too bad - which is really the point right?

So if the turkey experience wasn't bad enough, it took me about an hour or more to find all the other ingrediants I needed to make the rest of my meal, like whipped cream, brown sugar, evaporated milk, rolls, veggies, etc. Luckily my dear mother had sent me all the non-perishable items in the mail. I couldn't find a lot of what I was looking for so I had to improvise. Then, I used U-Tube as my guide to for "How to Prepare a Turkey" and "Famous Pumpkin Pie." Only they were in american measurements so I had to convert it all grams as I went along. I think I was off on a lot of it because the pumpkin pie had way too much cinnamon and lemon flavor.

Whooo...glad that's done! I can't say it was all that bad that though for never having cooked a Thanksgiving meal before and in France of all places.