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.