Thanksgiving 2011

I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving with any of my family members since I moved to France (8 years ago!!!) so a few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to do a faux-Thanksgiving! Chicken instead of turkey but otherwise all the other fixins were there and with the grey weather that day you wouldn't have known it was October and not November :)

I just can't get enough of my iPhone app so here's a 60's version of our dinner...

winter wonderland

Winter has come early to Normandy! (and the rest of France according to Facebook) On Thursday there was heavy hail and then it snowed all afternoon, about 3inches. You can imagine the panic and people all jumped in their cars to try and get home. It took me 45 minutes to drive 1.8km because there was bumper to bumper traffic and then the snow and the ice had people slipping all over the place. Made it home because the snow was totally aimed at Caen and as soon as I got out of the city it was dry and perfect road conditions t he rest of the way home.
Friday the sun came out and melted some of the snow so I was able to drive into Caen after work to partake in our annual Thanksgiving dinner!

The lovely Sarah came in from Paris and then came home with me afterwards for a relaxing weekend in Normandy. Little did she know snow was on the menu!

Yesterday it snowed all morning but fortunatly melted away in the afternoon so we were able to escape and drive up to get some groceries - 25km away by Cherbourg they had over 6 inches of snow!!!

And this morning we woke up to a lovely hard frost that you see in the picture, the cows munching away and their breath steaming. Hopefully we won't have any more snow! It is beautiful but when you live out in the middle of nowhere like we do it makes life really difficult!

my american market.com

Craving for some American foods in France? Start shopping with MyAmericanMarket.com and get 10% off your first order!

Ok so I still haven't ordered anything from them simply because I haven't had time and because there are just SO many choices! (that and I'm trying to watch my oh-so-girlish figure these days *cough*) But after their first blogger contest that I entered and all the wonderful things in the gift basket I thought I'd give it a second try! Plus even though Thanksgiving is a long way off it made me think that it would probably be the cheapest place to get some pecans for my pecan pie - and karo syrup! That way I can actually make the real thing this year...!

I'm totally getting tempted by the Mexican section too... god I really should have waited to blog about this after dinner! I would totally kill for some refried beans - I swear I can polish off a whole jar cold with just a spoon.

Anyway this is definitely the go-to site for American goodies, especially for us contry folk that live out in the middle of nowhere! I mean its cool that Carrefour and other stores stock English goodies for all those English ex-pats but give me some Reese's peanut butter cups anyday and you've got one happy American out here in Normandy!

Anyway my mouth is watering ... if only they carried Philadelphia cream cheese...

Happy thanksgiving!

thanksgiving 2008

My pecan pie from the Thanksgiving Feast 2008! The dinner was fabulous as was the company of old friends! I've been busy and meaning to update but it just hasn't happened. I'll try to get to it and the beautiful Christmas lights up in Caen but right now I've got to get ready for my trip to PARIS for the K&K EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!

belated thanksgiving

Happy Belated to all the Americans out there! Our expat celebration isn't going down until Saturday night when Mystery Guest and I head down to Caen, so dinner last night was rice, turkey and veggies stir fried in soy sauce - very traditional eh?

My jobs this year are: stuffing, stuffing and MORE stuffing! and a pecan pie :-)

Yum.

holiday season

The holiday season is fast approaching! This fall with my thesis work and everything has just flown by, I can't even believe its almost Thanksgiving! It's starting to feel like it though, we're in for a cold snap this weekend... brrr...

I've been keeping myself busy, buying pumpkins at the market and steaming them in preparation for soups and pies and other goodies. I've also been busy studying the written exam for my French driver's license.. big poo, that's way annoying! Lots of little things that I've left to the wayside while working on my Masters but now that's done so whoo-hoo!!

I'm also starting to think about xmas presents and my annual xmas card. When I was in high school we used to help my mom silkscreen her annual Christmas cards, now being the digital and internet nerd that I am I've been making picture cards with a collage of pictures from the past year. It's a fun way to show my travels and what I've been up to. Mystery Guest used to help me put them together and make it look all classy but I found that the new version of Picasa does the same thing with a lot less work! So I've been sorting through my pictures from 2008 and trying to choose the best ones for my card.. not easy! There are probably a couple thousand pictures!

We're also gearing up here in Normandy for our annual Thanksgiving dinner 2007, 2006, 2005. I've put some recipes on my blog but will be adding more soon. Yum! I can't wait!

gobble gobble!

I stepped outside of my house to go to our Thanksgiving dinner (put on by the Franco-American Society of Caen) and noticed that they finally turned on the Christmas lights! It is so beautiful looking around town and down everystreet are bright white lights, magical.
On the left is the view if you look up from my doorstep and then here is the photo looking down the street.

Beautiful eh?








We arrived at the dinner to find a French Gospel choir singing, it was nice and very appriciated (I know I wouldn't have gotten up and sung in French!) but I had spent the whole day telling French kids how Thanksgiving is not Christmas and is not a traditionally religious holiday, but more of a historical one. That was all blown out of the water when I saw the table setting - complete with ...

Christmas napkins!!!!

For those of you who can't read the French, here is Natalie presenting the appetizer:
a flan of livarot (a local camembert-type cheese), cured ham and a apple-liquor sauce. Yum.

I forgot to take a picture of the main dish, a huge hunk of turkey with a "cranberryish" sauce, tatertots and overcooked veggies. It was very good, especially the turkey. Here is Kristin showing off the cheese dish, a Basque cheese and a black cherry jam. Yum yum!

We forgot to take pictures of the dessert, but it was very good, a French toast made with gingerbread and apricots and ice cream. Big YUM. Polish it all off with a little cafe and we were stuffed! It is so nice of these French people to put this dinner on for us. You can't expect real Thanksgiving food, but as long as you know that it is a wonderful way to spend the Thursday night of Thanksgiving (as we don't get any days off over here and don't have lots of time to cook!)

Natalie and I went out with some French students who had come. They were a crack up but I didn't stay out till 5 as I had woken up at 6:30 to go work Thursday morning and was pretty exhausted by the time dinner finished at 12:00!

So in order to keep American traditions (and food!) alive, we had planned a dinner Friday (tonight). I got up early this morning to go to the market to get the goods for stuffing. (Making Mom's Apple-Celery-Raisin stuffing yum yum.) Made that and passed it on to the person who's cooking the turkey. Going to make some biscuits this afternoon. I've got to go to work soon so I can't write much more except to say this is what I saw when I woke up this morning!




SNOW!

This is the view out my windown onto the courtyard and it was dusted with a light layer of snow! Since 8ish its been snowing on again off again for the last few hours. I've never had snow for Thanksgiving but it is a special surprise. Coming down in big fat flakes now! Yipppeeeee!!!!

I'll try to put up some pictures from our dinner tonight sometime this weekend (after I catch up on my sleep!).

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This is def a year to be thankful for.