It was, by far, the latest I had ever eaten Thanksgiving dinner in my entire life. And it was the first time I had ever gone to school on Thanksgiving. We began eating our tray of crackers and appetizers at 8pm. 8pm! In America, we begin feasting at like 2 in the afternoon! That is a whole 6-hour difference.
To kick off the festivities, we did the traditional everyone-stand-up-and-clink-glasses-with-everyone. You literally have to clink glasses with every cup! I was always content with a few clinks and then calling it good, but here, you don't start sipping or sitting until your glass has touched everyone's. Okay? Okay.
And once again, I got a hard time for being the only sober person in the room! But it's okay being the odd man out. I just take my little baby cup of Schweppes or Arizona iced tea and 'cheers' with all the wine glasses. My host mom said, "so you're still not going to drink? Even after being in France this long?" YUP. You got it, lady. It's called Integrity, and I got a ton to share. (:
So we started off the dinner with our neighbor, Marie-Pierre's, amazing pumpkin soup. It was incredible! The key is to use wine when cooking it. So delicious!! Then began the green bean bundles, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, stuffing, turkey, and bread.
I sat on one end of the table with Julie (my 13 year old), her friend Amelie who we decided is my younger American sister, Sanam, and Mary, and Pauline (our neighbor). In the middle were the adults. Delphine, Fred, and Marie-Pierre. Then on the other end sat the crazy boys; Alex (my 5 year old), Malo (my 10 year old), Benjy, and Basile, the neighborhood friends. Boy was I thankful to be at the opposite side of them! They were hyped up on energy because they'd never had a party on a school night. Glad that's over.
It was a night full of good food, good company, good conversation, and a whole ton of dessert. Julie decided we would have a pie competition so we ended up with my pumpkin pie and pecan pie, a russian apple cake, apple pie, Nutella whipped cream pie, and banana chocolate chip muffins. Since everyone was a judge, we really didn't end up with a winner because everyone voted for different pies. Personally, my pumpkin pie was probably the best I had ever eaten.... The adults were all over the pumpkin pie since it is totally not a French dessert, the kids were all over the Nutella pie (holy cow it was rich!), and basically everyone could agree on the fact that apple pie is a simple classic. I think we all stuffed ourselves silly and when we were cleaning up at 11 at night, we just wanted to sit down and fall asleep! Hahahaha. Note to self: Do not ever eat Thanksgiving dinner that late.
Alas, I was done eating and cleaning downstairs so I hobbled up my 4 flights of stairs and Skyped with my family. I totally wish I was home to eat with them!! They passed around my Cross Country plaque and James even tried feeding me some turkey. Thanks, Jibbo. Jaycee and I decided that next year, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving Eve with games, movies, and pie, and THEN Thanksgiving day with the whole feast and stuff. It'll be great :)
I ate turkey for lunch and dinner for the next 5 days. I am so over that bird.
No comments:
Post a Comment