Advent Dinner: Our Quiet Before the Holiday Storm

Before the holidays have us running half way across the world, Christophe and I always have a low key celebration just between us.  We call it “le dîner de l’Avent” or our Advent dinner.  It’s not quite Christmas, so it would be silly to call it that.  It’s our quiet time before the holiday storm.  The weather warmed up enough to have the aperitif outside, but we moved the meal indoors afterwards. 

The Menu

First Course: Crème of Potimarron, Smoked Salmon, Fresh Fennel Sprouts; Homemade Foie Gras cooked in Port, Toast Points

Main Course:  Veal Roast in a Green Olive-Vegetable Broth, served with Carrots

I think it’s important for every family to create their own traditions, whatever it may be; this is ours – a small overindulgence, to say the least.

The blog will be taking a break for the holidays, but will be back in January.  Until then, have a wonderful holiday season.  I’ve got gingerbread cookies to make – no, I’m not kidding.

Come on… humor me.

The holiday season is here, and like most people, I’m in a litte over my head.  Here’s a post from December 2011 which includes one of my favorite holiday movies: Elf.

 

For me, one of the hardest things about living with a new language is not the lack vocabulary, but the loose of humor.  In English, I think I am funny, at times I even make people laugh, but in French, many my comments fall flat.  Half of humor is timing, and I’m often still translating as the conversation moves forward.   Slowly, I’ve gotten better at this, but there another factor of humor I can’t control: culture.   Humor is cultural; a shared experience that collectively strikes a chord in our being.  Perhaps it something built upon moments in our childhood that form our understanding of an idea and it is that shared upbringing that makes us laugh at the same things.  Christophe and I grew up in completely different cultures; he’s French and I’m American.  We can watch certain films together and find the humor, but there are other films that are completely elusive.  Once, we were watching the movie Elf and he turned to me and said, “I don’t get it.”

“How do you not get it?  The man is over 6 feet tall and thinks he’s an elf”, I said wiping tears of laughter from my eyes.

“It just seems, I don’t know, not funny”, he replied.

And that is where our cultural differences collided.  Elf is a modern American Christmas classic.  It is built around our childhood ideas of Christmas, Santa Claus, elves, and the North Pole.  Christophe is from the South of France.  He grew up with Provincial traditions such as blé de Sante Barbe, the crèche or nativity, and traditional foods.  Elves existed, but they are tacking lawn ornaments.

Elf takes explaining to Christophe, and sadly, most of its humor is lost in translation but I’m still trying, and I believe.  And that’s all it takes, right?

 

That day between Halloween and Christmas

Somewhere in between Halloween and Christmas, we Americans have a great holiday called Thanksgiving.  Besides being the start of the holiday season, it also seems to unofficially mark the appropriate time to start even start thinking about Christmas.  As a kid, I never saw Christmas ads until after the Thanksgiving Day parade, and decorations, in my home anyways, didn’t go up until we saw the last calendar page of the year.  But, times have changed, and I’ve witness the over burdensome Christmas ads push their way through to Halloween to get my attention, and I don’t like it.

Moving to France, I thought got away from the over-commercialism of the holiday.  During my first few years, I saw Christmas decorations arrive sometime in mid-December.  While I didn’t fully understand why the nylon stuffed Santa, or Père Noël was always found climbing up the side of a house, I did appreciate the timeliness of the décor.  The lights were simple, the Santas humble, and there were no giant blow up yard balloons.

Thankfully, the later has still not arrived, but I have already been completely over saturated with Christmas paraphernalia.  Advent has not even started and I’m being directed to what chocolates I should stuff into the child’s shoes.  There is no metaphorical dam of Thanksgiving, and the flood gates have opened all the way to Halloween.  Christmas in October has arrived in France and I openly admit I’m disappointed.

As a bicultural home, we celebrate holidays that appear on both sides of the ocean.  Christophe is a strong believer in Thanksgiving and what it represents.  He might not be American, but the idea of bringing family and friends together to reflect upon our good fortunes is something he truly appreciates.  Sometimes, that’s hard to do with the noise of consumerism breathing down our necks.  So with that, we stand united on the idea to celebrate one day at a time; fall before winter and Thanksgiving before Christmas.  I still have a menu to plan, a table cloth to iron, and a few pies to make before I’m willing to discuss Christmas.  That is, I’m still preparing for Thanksgiving; that wonderful November holiday. 

For me, Christmas is not until next month.  I’m going to enjoy the turkey before anything else and remember the holiday is not just a precursor for what’s ahead.  Heck, I might even wait and see the last calendar page picture before I decide to go out and find my tree.

 

A blowup snowman dressed as hunter, for Christmas.  Really?

The 13 Desserts

We Americans might have our Christmas cookies, but Southern France has 13 desserts at the Christmas table.  The first time I heard this, I thought it was ironic since the French criticize Americans for being excessive.  My family might have had numerous desserts at Christmas, but never that many.  Then, I discovered the 13 desserts to be quite different from the sugary sweet desserts that I knew from my childhood; gone are the peanut butter balls and snickerdoodles, and in its place I have a platter filled with Mediterranean specialties, such as dried fruits and nuts, nougats, and a rustic bread made from olive oil called la pompe a huile.  The desserts consist of a vast array of complex flavors and textures revolving around earthly blends and local products, such as honey and lavender.   The colors are natural and the forms are organic, placing an emphasis on the untransformed state of the products. 

Historically, the 13 desserts represent Jesus and the 12 apostles and there needs to be the 4 Mendiants.  Those are dried figs, almonds, walnuts, and dried grapes which represent different religious orders: the Dominicans, Franciscans, the Carmelites, and Augustans.  The 13 desserts show how the area is in touch with its culinary and religious roots and how that still effects what is served at a holiday meal.

Having the 13 dessert at the Christmas table was quite a change for me, particularly since I consider chocolate to be the only reasonable dessert; however, I’ve grown to like this change and enjoy playing with the variety of flavors the platter offers.  I see the 13 desserts as a time to reflect on the holiday and see how many things the French eat and do are symbolic.  I particularly like that aspect of it; the holidays are a reflective and joyous time, and the 13 Desserts are subtle reminder of that.

Christmas Foie Gras



A jar of our homemade foie gras



It’s getting to look a lot like Christmas….

While Christmas trees might not be traditional in Southern France, the preparation and commercialization of the holiday are becoming as common as in the US.  Toy commercials fill the airways, perfume infiltrates the magazines, and foie gras appears in every store aisle.  That’s right, foie gras; the liver of specially fattened ducks.  Just like Champagne, it is considered a luxury item people splurge on for the holidays, and it is in every aisle and in every form at the grocery store.  It’s fully cooked, partially cooked, stemmed in a towel, flavored, and sold whole.  It covers all gams and can be bought for a few dollars a serving to a hundred dollars a serving.

Foie gras has a love-hate following, and we love it.  Not being an everyday food, we tend to splurge on this purchase, but in our own way.  We buy high quality whole foie gras, mix it with a little cognac, and prepare it ourselves.  Some might think it to be a little “too country”, perhaps even gross, but it far beats out any we’ve bought at the store.

Making homemade foie gras is one of the French holiday traditions I’ve adopted.  There are others, but this one is clearly the most gastronomical.