Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Un Thanksgiving Français!

I was a little sad to spend Thanksgiving away from home. In fact, it hardly felt like Thanksgiving at all. I didn't get to fly home to see my family, and I even had to go to class! But all of the EAP students got to go to a big Thanksgiving dinner that the Bordeaux-USA Association put on. It was so much fun! Even though it wasn't the same as being at home with my family, and the French-ified versions of Thanksgiving food were a little weird, I had a really good time hanging out with the other California students and meeting other Americans living here.

It started off (at around 8:30pm, in typical French fashion) with the appéritif, this weird bread that had nuts and ham chunks in it. It was actually pretty good! And I was starving. My friend and I were deceived into drinking some "orange juice" that turned out to be sangria. Zut! Next, there was a crudité salad of carrots, cabbage, and cucumbers... it was a little plain.

                        

Then we got to the main course! It was pretty classic, with turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, and stuffing. They also gave us "sauce aux airelles," which it turns out is not cranberry sauce, but huckleberry sauce! Crazy! And of course there was plenty of wine, which my table again traded away for water.The food was good; it wasn't amazing, but I was just happy to have Thanksgiving dinner at all. I did miss my mom's stuffing though! 


 Next, we had the classic, all-American Camembert cheese course. Wait, what? Your family doesn't do the cheese course?


I was really excited because the menu said we were having pumpkin pie, which is like the best part of Thanksgiving. At home, I even eat it for breakfast!!! Well, I was a little disappointed because it was actually more of a pumpkin tart or something. It had nuts in it and wasn't really the same flavor or consistency as pumpkin pie. But it's the thought that counts!


Of course we ended by drinking coffee at like 11:30 at night. So it was quite the Thanksgiving a la française!

Hope you all had happy Thanksgivings! À bientôt!

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