Thanksgiving came and went in Bangkok and our search for a pumpkin pie to satiate my craving was unsuccessfull. We were next in Bali and each day when I went to a balinese meditation class I had signed up for, Dave went out on a hunt to find good eats, and in particular pumpkin pie. After 3 days, he greeted me after class looking like he was going to jump out of his skin. "I found pumpkin pie!!" he exclaimed. "Come on! THey warmed a piece up and are holding it for you!"
We rushed over there, and I had a bite. It was really lovely, but it wasn't the flavors I was craving. So, although I enjoyed it, and deeply appreciated Dave's efforts, the craving lingered until we returned in March of 2000 and I could make a homebaked pumpkin pie.
It surprised me then that the only thing I really missed about Thanksgiving was the pumpkin pie. It's a family holiday, right? Shouldn't I have missed family? Well yes, and I did. But we had just left home, so I wasn't feeling the sadness of being away from the people I loved on Thanksgiving. I talked to everyone that day, but didn't ache for home.
Because of that experience, I had expectations of how I would react to being away from home this Thanksgiving. The thing is that this time, I've been away from home for so long, all I could think about was being home in the comfort of a warm home with Dave and my families. I even considered a quick trip home so I could see everyone. But I refrained and we decided to spend this Thanksgiving with an American girlfriend of mine here in Lyon. She loves to cook and was dieing to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, and Dave and I love to eat and would love to share a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, so we thought this might be a really good match.
Early on Thanksgiving morning, Rita and I started our shopping and bought everything we needed. It was absolutely amazing the difference between shopping here on Thanksgiving and shopping at home. At home, if you have any sense at all, you don't end up at a grocery store on T-day. And if you do go, it has to be before 2pm, and be prepared to deal with hordes of crazy people frantic because they forgot something they desperately needed. Lines are out the door, people are screaming, pleading and barking. It just ain't pretty. But here, we had a liesurely morning meandering through the market, deciding on the menu as we went, and sampling all the products on special that day. What a great way to start a holiday. Then we settled down for a nice lunch and coffee. In the afternoon I had a dance class, so we decided she would pick up the turkey she had special ordered from a local boucherie and I would be back at her house at about 5pm.
When I got back to her place she told me that her boyfriend wasn't going to be able to make it until about 9 because of the darn train strike that was going on in France. So, we openned a bottle of wine and settled into an evening of liesurely cooking. I peeled and blended and shelled, while Rita, the expert cook that she is, calmly put together an amazing meal. She made a gorgous Turkey (more to follow!), mashed potatoes, yams, and greenbeans. Yummy!
Dave arrived at 7:15pm and we sat down to our only Frenchized portion of our Thanksgiving dinner, pate, 3 delicious cheeses, toasts, and some Beaujolais. Beaujolais? Here's Dave to tell you more about that....
Thanksgiving arrived in Lyon and through the wonders of pervasive American culture, all our friends and co-workers knew about Thanksgiving. They weren't going to do anything special themselves, they just wanted to know if we were going to be OK, because they understood this was an important family holiday.
Anyway, everyone here was more wrapped up in the Beaujolais Nouveau. Oh yeah... We had heard about this, but maybe something got lost in translation? This is when the first of the Beaujolais wine from the year hits the market. So, this is like super young red wine? Wouldn't the wine be better if it aged a bit? Well, apparently, we didn't misunderstand. Even the French admit it is silly, but they have races to get the wine to Paris or Japan, plus public spectacles and parties. Since we're right in the Beaujolais area, it's not so much a race as an excuse to have big parties and drink lots of wine. Signs in all the restaurants remind us that the beaujolais "has arrived!"
So, it was amid this wine quaffing backdrop that we humble Americans put together our plans for Thanksgiving. Personally I love Thanksgiving, if only because it has stubbornly resisted commercialization and (somewhat) acts as a bulwark against the monster marketing machine known as Christmas. Our British friends tell us "you guys are lucky you have Thanksgiving. We've been forced to listen to Christmas music in the malls since October!" Well, even if Thanksgiving is reduced to just a green flag for the Great Christmas Shopping Spree - at least WE were going to do something to celebrate.
The American club did have something planned for Thanksgiving, but like any organization that is entirely volunteers, the whole thing was mismanaged and we were told the event was full. So, instead we joined with our American friend Rita and her French boyfriend Olivier for a quiet Thanksgiving evening. Rita loves to cook and nothing was going to stop her from making turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and yams. And we could drink some of this Beaujolais Nouveau stuff at the same time! Monica and Rita picked up a bunch of bottles. "You can only get it at this time of year, so we seized our opportunity!"
The rest of their shopping went normally, except for the turkey. Rita tried to explain to Olivier just how plentiful turkey is in the US at Thanksgiving - that they even give them away free at the grocery stores when you spend a certain amount. Here turkey just isn't very popular, and unless you want pre-packaged sliced turkey you have to wait for Christmas or order it. So, Rita ordered a 16 pound bird from her butcher. She knew it was going to be expensive. Very expensive. She ordered it the day before Thanksgiving so it was also a rush delivery... Uh oh. Rita? How much did that 16-lb bird cost? Well, it was enough that she almost considered not having turkey for Thanksgiving. She sucked in her breath when she found out what it was going to cost. Ninety-nine euro ($150). Oh my god! Maybe we should just fill up on caviar and savor the turkey bit by bit.
Olivier got delayed by the train strike, so the three of us had cheese and pâté on toasts and opened up the Beaujolais Nouveau while we waited. Hey, this stuff isn't bad, it's actually quite quaffable. I read that it is sort of the wine equivalent of eating cookie dough. And, since it is made so quickly, it doesn't age well. Uh oh. I guess we'd better open more bottles! After a bottle or two, it's really quite delicious!
I think Monica will tell you about the delicious food we had - I'm sure you had plenty of good traditional favorites too - but it's all a drunken blur in my mind. No! I'm just kidding! We didn't drink THAT much. It was really a nice Thanksgiving and the two celebrations together made for a pleasant combination. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving too!
A final note on America... We were walking down the street when Monica exclaimed that there was a painting with the label "America" and it was a woman with naked breasts sticking straight out! Well, we are the "Land of the Free." Oh, and there was a man grabbing them! "Ah, That would be Home of the Brave!"
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