Saint's Giving

I honestly don’t know how we do it. Year after year we gear up for Thanksgiving dinner: the turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and marshmallows, rolls, and stuffing. You know the saying, “You are what you eat,” well, be my guest and predict where I’m going with this one. After eating a lovely Thanksgiving (or Saint’s Giving as my host dad previously thought! I love it!) dinner of chicken, potatoes, salad, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and an apple tart with my host family, family friend, Emma, Emma’s younger brother, Théo, and Clelia, I had to admire our capacity for comfort food. Since becoming accustomed to French cuisine in the past three months, I got a slap in the gut making me realize how defending American food is useless. That isn’t to say that I don’t love my Grandma Mary’s mashed potatoes or pumpkin pie, but this is one of the first times that I realized we actually do have a certain food culture in the States and it’s not just “hamburgers” or “Mexican/Chinese/Thai/Indian/American mix.”

                  Having grown up my whole life eating pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce during Thanksgiving and then suddenly being placed in France has made me reflect a little bit. Just a little. Here’s a question, or a “food for thought” if you will: could someone PLEASE tell me whose idea it was to put puréed pumpkin in a can? How about congealed cranberries? What about Pillsbury crescent rolls in their fancy popping cans? Wait, that one is kind of obvious – who DOESN’T like opening the can just for the thrill of the mini explosion? We’re more about the process of things in the USA – how fast, entertaining, or impressive it is and we think less about the end result, in my opinion. How many of you have turned down a recipe that looked too complicated or took too long or didn’t read an article because it was too long? This holiday season take your time with food, family, and enjoyment because the best things in life aren’t rushed. 

Thanksgiving chicken!

                  Yesterday I went to my friend, Emma’s house to watch “Eat, Pray, Love,” and I couldn’t help but feel like Julia Roberts a little. If you don’t know the premise, this lady goes on a trip to Italy, India, and Bali to “find herself”. Before I make this a big old cheese ball, just know I got something out of it in addition to a fun time hanging out with Emma.  Then at four thirty my friend, Clelia’s parents came to pick me up to go to her concert in Draguignan. We stopped to get Clelia’s Russian friend, Sasha, her parents, Sasha’s friend, Lys, who is also in my class, and Sasha’s boyfriend, Alex. The concert was so much fun! Even though it was smaller and in a theater Sasha and I managed to have a dance party American-Russian style, and we stayed in the front row. One of the bands there is called ONX and they were pretty good! We all went right up to the stage and had a really good time dancing and banging on the stage to the beat of the music. However, after ONX there was another band which proved to be a big mistake, you could have even known it was going to be bad from it’s title, “Face Boob.” Honestly people. When the concert was over I said goodbye to friends and then to Sasha who went back to Russia yesterday.

The band members before the concert

My host sister's band - she's playing base on the far left-hand side

ONX

Sasha (Russian), Clelia (French), Me (American, obviously)

                  Today I had the extreme fortune to skype my family as they were sitting down to eat Thanksgiving dinner (lunch):

Sorry for the fuzz, but here's my mom's side of the family before eating Thanksgiving dinner

That’s about it for now, but I hope that you had a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends and I also hope you can enjoy some pre-holiday Christmas music for me!

Bisous,

Maggie