What could taste better than a Franco-American Thanksgiving?

Bay leaves, rosemary, sage and thyme are thrown into the roasting pan and we are loaded for bear. Just pop it all into the oven and… oh wait- what are those garlic cloves doing on the counter? Open up the oven, grab the bird from its fiery clutches and experience a narrow miss of the evening’s first (and hopefully last) oh merde moment.

Our prowling supervisor works on shaking the remains of his afternoon nap by assuming a place on the floor in order to comfortably assess the performance of his caretakers. The Little Guy stared at me for a good couple of minutes as I photographed this face of vague concentration. I think I bear a similar resemblance when I don’t PT first thing in the morning…

Ahh the ever-important beverage area. We’ve got selections for invités of all ages- even a blue plastic bottle for the French military guys coming over later on.

Each family has their own traditions at Thanksgiving (my own usually revolves around a piece of furniture known as a hutch- and let us never speak of this again). At this house, a jar containing a secret number of M and Ms was mailed over to Paris by stateside family members. This jar intrigue would add some excellent drama towards the end of the evening.

We’ve got about 20 people coming for dinner, so glasses are at a premium. We’re advised to mark our glasses with these neat tags. No one’s gonna steal my glass, because as far as anyone is concerned, I deliver complexity.

Once the Thanksgiving supervisor has knocked out his siesta cobwebs, he’s quickly on the move as guests arrive. Here I am stealing his seat and negotiating the dispensation of a Thanksgiving banana so his parents can work with the oven.

Our Thanksgiving table includes a bit of arts and crafts that will teach French attendees something about our Thanksgiving crack at artistry. The dining table is covered with brown paper so people can draw turkeys à l’américain. Here we have the fabulous Audrey doing her interpretation of a turkey hand. She is the embodiment of this dinner as she herself is Franco-American- and you can see that she is fusing her innate sense of French craftsmanship with her  lowbrow hand tracing style which has results in conjoined turkey twins.

I don’t know who made this turkey, but it did ensure that no one stole her spot.

And I have no idea who drew all over herself as she failed in her effort to trace around her hand. I swear I was only on glass number one while attempting this challenging feat.

 
Guests arrived already wearing big smiles, and this was because they kept saying that down in the street they could smell dinner cooking. No one needed to be told where to go- all they had to do was follow the aroma of Freedom Food emanating from the apartment two floors up.

I’ve got a French Army officer seated next to me. We’re getting along great since we’re both pretty schooled in the give-and-take of ball-busting conversation. He didn’t know much about me or my sporting allegiances when he drew this crazy turkey up. But I helped to correct the situation.

Time for dinner, and although he may kill me for videoing this and sticking it on Youtube, I thought that this pre-dinner speech was fantastic. Tim is great at speaking off the cuff and making everyone feel welcome at all times- especially during this holiday where there were way more French people than Americans.

Eating in action. You can tell that this is a table that you’d hope to find a seat saved. Great food and great conversation made time (and food) fly by.

Remember, this is an American Thanksgiving being held in France- which means that no meal is complete without a fantastic cheese course.

Also recall that I was ripping up flaky challah bread earlier in the day, and now this is the glorious result: pumpkin bread pudding. Really, this could have been my entire Thanksgiving dinner and I would have been happy- but you kinda need some protein before dessert if you want to keep from consuming the entire pan.

This is the dessert plate of that crazy Giants-loving Army guy. Bourbon apple pie was the rivaling dessert choice, which explains the Maker’s Mark in my potato shot, as well as the glasses of bourbon in the background seen here. It’s all about food and drink pairings in this country. I feel like I’ve won the food lottery.

Recalling the jar of candy from earlier, dessert course now sees it passed around to be inspected and scrutinized with a wine-saturated critical eye. Everyone writes down their guess as to how many are in the jar.

Here’s our hostess, reading out the various guesses as everyone looks on in rapt attention. I don’t think that the French are used to the possibility of winning prizes for simply showing up for supper.

Scandale! Here’s the other half of our hosting team in premature celebration as the exact  count is read from the wax-sealed envelope – it was his Mom who sent over the jar. Here you see the French looking on in suspicion of American-style chicanery. Lucky for him, there was one better guess, and the ultimate winner was French. Good thing, because Thanksgiving is all about sharing…

And in the next room, we have a Slingbox arrangement set up that allows us to watch the  football games being broadcast back at home. This is Thanksgiving authenticity at its finest. Especially as I watch and sip my delicious French wine.

This is only a fraction of the empties that accumulated in the kitchen. The keys to Thanksgiving cleanup success includes periodic dish washing and recycling intervals.

The little French fridge valiantly holds the leftovers. Or at least most of them.

And without further ado, I present you with a collage of the table’s other hand turkeys:

Turkey drawn by an American.

French turkey drawings (which kinda goes without saying…)

More French turkeys. Or maybe the French word for turkey sounds like reindeer.

Okay, the French just wanted to channel their inner Cézanne, or maybe give a little respect to the fallen dinde. This one’s my favorite.

This is also done by a French guest, and I think it says it all.

I woke up the next morning kinda late, and felt a bit like I had undertaken a wrestling match with a street sweeper the day before. I walked out to the kitchen, where underage supervision was once again taking place while the adults continued with kitchen clean-up duties. I was greeted with a bottle of Advil, which I gratefully washed down with a cup of black coffee before reassuming a horizontal position in the living room. Not a bad way to roll into the holiday season.