Frenchgiving 2012

Frenchgiving dinner

We finally got around to celebrating Thanksgiving here in the South of France.  As I wrote earlier, it’s not the date that’s important to us, but the sentiment behind it: the gathering of friends and family, enjoying a meal, and reflecting upon the things for which to be grateful.  We revel in the tradition of the meal, but openly adapt it.  Second year running, the game is to use all the traditional ingredients in a Thanksgiving dinner, but change it.  Oddly enough, it’s not stressful and has actually freed up the common problem of the ballet of dishes in and out of the oven.  There are some region substitutions, such as red currants for cranberries, but the goal is to have all the players present, just dressed up differently.

Frenchgiving Menu 2012

First course: Soufflé of Potimarron

Dinner: Turkey Two Ways: Grilled Turkey Breast, Roasted Turkey with Stuffing

Rustic Dinner Rolls

Roquefort Stuffed Mushroom Caps

Bacon Wrapped Green Beans

Red Currant Chutney

Gravy 

Dessert: Pumpkin-Chocolate Cheesecake

Thanksgiving preparation looks a little like this for just about every cook, but here is how the day went for me: (Note what time the turkey went into the oven!)

·         9:30 am wake up; thankful for a day to sleep in.

·         10 am Coffee.  Think of Thanksgiving as a child and remembering my Mom already had the turkey in the oven for hours by now.

·         11 am Think that perhaps I should start making dinner, which is planned to be served at 8 pm.  Start first step of homemade rolls then get the stuffing started.  (This is one dish that has not changed for I cannot call a dinner Thanksgiving without my mother’s stuffing.  It’s nothing fancy, just white bread, onion, celery, spices, and pork sausage, of course.  I am from the Midwest after all.)

Two bowls of stuffing get made because one gets eaten before it even gets into the bird.

·         11:30 pm Step two of rolls: knead and let rise for an hour.

·         12 pm Christophe has promised to vacuum the living room, but his car won’t start.  It’s parked out in front (I’m still not sure why he needed to start his car to vacuum the living room, but….).  Living room goes un-vacuumed and I start the red current chutney and peel the potimarron for the soufflé.

·         12:30 pm Fold roll dough over on itself as directed; left to rise for another 30 minutes.  Start gravy.

·         1 pm Christophe comes back in the house convinced he has a sparkplug problem and declares we will be grilling cheeseburgers for lunch.  He claims we will be eating “All American” today.

·         1:30 pm Fold dough over on itself for second time; by now am only “slightly” covered in flour.



Potimarron cooking for the souffle

·         2 pm Potimarron has been cooked and drained.  I’m beginning to think that I should prepare the turkey, and am starting to guesstamate how long a breastless turkey will take in the oven.  Remember I need to continue with the rolls.

·         2:30 pm Go out and look at Christophe’s car with Christophe. No turkey prep yet, but the rolls go in the oven.

·         3 pm Prepare the Roquefort stuffed mushroom caps, rolls come out of oven.

·         4 pm Christophe brings in the heating wood and vacuums the living room.  Claims he will worry about his car tomorrow.  I pull the turkey (a whopping 8 pounds) out of the fridge.  Last minute hesitations about not deboning the entire thing, but decide to go with my first idea of turkey 2 ways: grilled roast turkey breast with herb butter, and roasted turkey with stuffing.  Remove breast meat and tie into roast.  Christophe declares it to be “cute”.

·         4:30 pm Some guest arrive.  I nix my idea of a shower.

I'm adapting recipes from both French and English cookbooks.

·         5 pm Prepare the bacon wrapped green beans.  Change into clean clothes and wipe the flour off my face.  Christophe irons the tablecloth.

·         6 pm Look long and hard at the “two” turkeys.

·         6:30 pm Decide to finally put one turkey in the oven.

·         7 pm Rest of the guest arrive.

·         7:10 pm Appetizers get served.

·         7:15 pm Remember that I still need to get the turkey breast roast on the barbeque.

Grilled turkey breast is done and the green beans and mushrooms are waiting to be cooked.

·         7:45 pm Turkey comes out of the oven.  I separate egg whites to beat into a soufflé with the porimarron.  Place soufflé in oven.  Start sautéing the green beans and mushroom caps.

·         8 pm Turkey breast roast comes off barbeque.  Soufflé oddly not cooking.

·         8:10 pm Notice we are out of cooking gas; tell Christophe he needs to change the bottle of gas.  (Think of like the gas bottles for a barbeque.   This is the country; there are no gas lines that run up here.)

Potimarron souffle - individual portions.

·         8:15 pm New gas hooked up, soufflé start cooking again, and by some miracle, has not fallen.

·         8:45 pm Dinner on table.

It was only 45 minutes late, which by some Thanksgiving standards, is pretty darn good.  Here, in Southern France, anything up to an hour late is still considered right on time.  Very proud to have the turkey in and out of the oven in less than 90 minutes and the grilled turkey breast roast was a big hit.  I admit, the pumpkin-chocolate cheesecake for dessert was made a day in advance, but it’s a cheesecake, it needs time to set.  No panic over oven space, reheating already cooked dishes, or serving in “turns”.  Changing it up, but keeping the ingredients the same is a challenge I’ve embraced.  Now, all I have to figure out is how to top that next year.

A little ambiance.

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?

Thanksgiving leftovers

            It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a holiday we celebrated on Saturday, and we have no leftovers.  The gravy is gone, the turkey is completely eaten, and even the stock I made was finished last night.  There is zero chance of me serving turkey tomorrow. 

“How can that be?”  You might ask.  “Thanksgiving leftovers usually stick around until days before Christmas.”

Ah, yes, the late night turkey sandwich, turkey tetrazzini, turkey a la king, and even turkey inspired casseroles are all memories of meals I’ve eaten after Thanksgiving.  We will be having none of that because this is France.  There are no 20 pound turkeys; our weighed in at a hearty 7 pounds.  That’s right, just 7 pounds, and we were 6 at the table for Thanksgiving dinner.  It’s not as if we searched out a small turkey, they all come that way.  In fact, I think we even bought the largest one we could find.  Sigh…even the turkeys are skinner here.

This is quite a contrast to my Thanksgiving memories.  In some sense, having a small turkey does make things easier, but leftovers also seem to be part of the Thanksgiving tradition and nothing is easier than having dinner ready and in the fridge for the following week.  This is sadly, something Frenchgiving cannot provide.

So, to those who have not dived into the plateful of holiday goodness, enjoy the day, the games, the parade, and long naps.

Happy Thanksgiving, and save some leftovers for me.

French-giving

Roasted Turkey with Sausage Stuffing, Crème de Potimarron, Potatoes Glacée, Green Beans in Smoked Bacon, and Red Currant Chutney



I love introducing Thanksgiving to the French.  Each year, I try to have someone new at the table and each year I get asked the same questions about the holiday’s origins.  Thanksgiving has no French equivalent; it is truly a foreign idea to them and even after much explanation, it still remains to them an odd, yet enjoyable meal. 

Thanksgiving in general presents its problems: overcooked turkey, family fights, and the boredom that sets in while waiting to get to the table.  I’ve tackled those problems, plus a few more.

To begin with, there are no turkeys available in November; I repeat: no turkeys.  This means we wait until just before Christmas (and sometimes the night before we board the plane for international travel) when they are finally available at the store and plunge one into the deep freeze for 11 months.  Yes, this takes some forethought, but having a whole turkey at Thanksgiving is worth it.

Then, there are some adaptations.  I’ve gotten used to this and am pretty good at swapping out ingredients with no notable difference.  Keeping that in mind, there are no cranberries or casseroles.  One is native only to North America and the other is looked at being too common for a holiday meal.

Last, there is the French factor, and this is a big one.  This is the one that pushed me to mix it up this year; to debone a turkey, to make 3 new dishes I’ve never tried, to individually plate the meals instead of serving it family style, and to have Champagne chilling in the fridge for dessert.  And this is the factor that I think makes it the most interesting. 

Our cross culture collisions in the kitchen emerge the most at Thanksgiving.  The turkey is basted in duck fat, red currants are used for cranberries, sweet potatoes are replaced by potimarron, and somehow the ultra-traditional French side dish of green beans wrapped in bacon appears.

The dinner has become a pinnacle moment in our house.  It’s a time for us to get together and look at who we are and what we have become together.  I might not have the morning parade, the football games, and the turkey induced afternoon naps, but I do have French-giving and it has made me a better person for trying something new, taking a risk, and sharing a part of me.

That's right; I'm a third of the way to a turducken.  This has given me some ideas for next year.