Le Jour de remerciment
Because a year without Thanksgiving just won't do, I hosted a big Thanksgiving party at my house for the other American assistants, their (mostly French) housemates, and some of my friends here that I've made. It was definitely a Thanksgiving to remember. By the time the party was in full swing, there were Americans, Germans, French, an Italian, and a British guest all in attendence. It was quite a celebration. But even though it went well in the end, it was quite an...adventure pulling it off. It all started with a non-chalant suggestion that we have Thanksgiving for the other Americans we know, since we were all feeling sad about missing it. Over the course of 2 weeks, it turned into Thanksgiving for 30! This is mostly because I kept inviting people without thinking, and before I knew it the guest list had doubled. But I really wanted to share the tradition and have a big party chez moi! (These are some of my favorite friends I've made in Avignon - Rémi, Wolfram, Me, and Sushi - whose real name is Simone)
So the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I went to the market and ordered a turkey for 20 (I had not yet reached the 30 mark) to be ready at 7am Friday morning. I decided to have Thanksgiving a day late because I don't work on Fridays and I figured I would need all day to prepare and cook the turkey! (The first time I've ever done it myself!) On Wednesday, I bought various squashes to make pumpkin pie, and other ingredients for stuffing. Everything had to be from scratch, because they don't sell boxes of Thanksgiving foods here. So Carly bought a giant loaf of sourdough bread from our favorite Baker, and I cut it up into little squares and dried them all out. I cooked the squash, puréed the pumpkin and prepared everything I could do before Friday. Carly came over while I was working on Thursday and made the brine for the turkey, green bean casserole with fried onions on top, and really tasty mashed sweet potatoes with turnips mixed in (the turnips were from our organic veggie basket and the
sweet potatoes were left over after we helped cook at the co-op Wed. morning - what luck!) The kitchen was filling up with all kinds of delicious, or soon to be delicious things.
Friday morning, I woke up early, went to the market and picked up the turkey an
d got ready to start cooking. The poultry man gave me a box of livers and kidneys as a present too! Because I bought such a giant turkey! It was 52 Euros and like 9 kg. Yeah man. Big. So I took the turkey home, and realized that I needed to find a container big enough for the Turkey, the brine that was already made, and a gallon of ice water. Our biggest pot was almost full just with the brine. So I looked around the house, but the buckets we had were too small. I went up to my room, and thought that my trash can might be big enough, so I brought it downstairs and
washed it with dishsoap, and put the turkey in with the gallon of water. Unfortunately, it was not big enough! I hadn't put the brine in yet and it was already full! I had to find another solution. Sooo I emptied the kitchen trashcan, took it into the bathroom, and washed it thoroughly with soap. My coloc Myrto came in and saw me doing this, and suggested that I also put a clean plastic bag in it before depositing the turkey. Oh yeah....I have become far too tolerant of kind of gross things. (Thank you Senegal...it all comes back). So I put the fresh bag in, put the turkey in, and dumped in the water and the brine, and left it in the kitchen without the heat on (which means freezing!) for 6 hours. I then took a little nap (I woke up early!) and then Lucy came down from Lyon and we made the stuffing and got some last minute ingredients. Before we knew it, it was 2pm and time to start baking the turkey!
This is where it gets exciting. I don't have an oven at my house. So in order to cook the turkey, we took it out of it's bag, washed it, and wrapped it up again in its bag and then in a reusable grocery bag, and took it to a friend's who had an oven. She had pre-heated it and everything, and even though we didn't have a turkey pan, we figured out a way to catch all the yummy juices, and fit it (just barely - ovens are small here!) into the oven. We baked it until the top was nice and brown, and as we were coving it with tin foil and preparing to cook it for 3 hours, the oven shorted! It just stopped working! All of the electricity in her apartment went out, and when we finally got it back on and tried to turn the oven on again, it shorted out again! The oven refused to work! At this point, panic set in. I picked up my phone and called everyone I knew in Avignon who had an oven. Carly was at work and her housemate was not picking up. Stephanie's oven was too small. Finally I reached
another assistant, Zandra, who called her housemate who was home, and about half an hour later we were wrapping up the partially cooked turkey in tin foil, putting it into a new plastic bag, putting that into our grocery bag, and packing up all the juices that had dripped down and our other ingredients to prepare to transport the turkey to it's new oven. We stepped outside, and it was pouring rain! So with two of us carrying the turkey and the other two carrying the rest of the ingredients, we ran half-way accross Avignon to Zandra's apartment (which we had to find on a map). Her roommate (who we had never met) opened the door, and after a very quick hello, we rushed in, unpacked the turkey, which was thankfully still warm, and shoved it into the new oven to continue the roasting. What an adventure! We were laughing so hard as it was raining and we were running with this giant turkey! It was a real Turkey Trot! Hehehe. But very memorable! However, we lost valuable time, and now the turkey would not be ready before 8:30 (the party was set to start at 7:30). But there was nothing to be done, so we went home, and while the turkey cooked we made two pumpkin pies and heated up the other food, cleaned the house and set up the kitchen/living room for the party. I was not even changed when the first guests arrived, and I was in the midst of sweeping! But luckily people were patient, and as more and more people showed up, the table began to fill up with really wonderful Thanksgiving food!
There were cooked carrots, improvised cranberry sauce (with cranberry juice and some other fruit), corn bread, mashed potatoes, the green bean casserole that Carly made, mashed sweet potatoes, two small herb encrusted turkey breasts (because I didn't think I would have enough - ha!) Broccoli casserole, Stuffing, Mashed sweet potatoes, pumpkin pies, apple pies and more! And, I had originally been worried about having enough wine, so I had asked a few people to bring a bunch, but everyone ended up bringing at least one bottle, so we had tons! (And this is what happened! - note - this was staged)
I was still really nervous about the turkey, but people seemed to be showing up and having a good time. We finally started eating, even though the turkey had yet to arrive, and Kasia and Fanny (whose oven had shorted earlier) went to check up on it and help bring it over when it was ready. Finally, around 9, the doorbell rang and in walked Kasia and Fanny (and Zandra and her
housemates and a German assistant who had also been helping) with a beautiful golden turkey stuffed with crispy brown stuffing. It was amazing!
Everyone clapped and we gave a little toast about what Thanksgiving was all about and what we were thankful for, and then I carved the turkey and dished it out, to very satisfied guests! In the end it worked out, and everyone had a great time! People ended up staying till 2:30 in the morning, and we were all very fat and happy:)
But what I really loved was that in preparing for Thanksgiving, so many people helped me! It was such a collaborative effort for everything that we made, cleaning the house, setting up - I didn't do anything alone. At the end of the night, after everyone left, Kasia, Fanny, Carly, and I did all the dishes together, and it was actually really fun and we laughed and then all collapsed on the couch together. I felt so happy to have made such good friends here, and I was so touched by how much they helped out and got into Thanksgiving with me! I love moments that make me stop and realize that I'm so lucky, and that even though it's hard to be far away there are people here that I have grown to love! It's a wonderful feeling!
So I'm sorry I got sappy on you guys at the end, but I was so happy that it went well, and that Lucy came all the way from Lyon to help, and Carly cooked all day Thursday at my house without me, and Kasia and Fanny took valuable study time to run accross Avignon with a practically raw turkey to make this party happen. For all those things I am truly Thankful!
(Me and Fanny with the Turkey)
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