Friday, November 26, 2010

Thanksgiving in France: The Party!

And now for the meal portion of Thanksgiving! Since I am so far from home for this fabulous holiday, I decided to create a fake French Thanksgiving with all of the other assistants in Avignon. We held the party at the apartment of a few assistants who live together (since theirs is WAY bigger than mine) and we ended up having around 30 people!!! What a success!

For my contribution, I decided to make a lower cal/fat sweet potato pie. I'd wanted to do a pumpkin one, but they don't sell canned pumpkin or smaller baking pumpkins here and I have a small oven. So, sweet potatoes it was:

A mix of American and French ingredients. My momma even sent me the pumpkin pie spice mix from the states!

Mmm sweet potatoes

Voilà! The finished project! It tasted EXACTLY how I hoped it would taste... i.e. like America.


As for everyone else, we'd made a huge list of things to bring and everyone chipped in. We even had a few dishes from Canadian thanksgiving! What a way to show the Brits how we roll in North America!

Mulled wine

Turkey roasts... My babies. My friend Amy and I ordered four (couldn't fit a big bird in the ovens) directly from the butcher. He was so excited to be part of our "American holiday" :)

Canned cranberry jelly sent from the USA (Thanks, mom!) Apparently you can also buy it at Ikeas world wide? Who knew?

Carving the birds... So hot and sweaty in the kitchen! At least everyone enjoyed it!

Time to eat!

My plate. Didn't really hold back this year... Need to get back on plan after!

The spread.

Ze girls

A shot of the living room, to give an idea of how packed we were!

Craft time!

My mom ALSO sent a "make your own turkey" craft with the sauce/spices... We had a blast! Aren't our little guys cute?

Rosie with her poor little turkey


All in all, it was a great time. It definitely made it a lot easier to work all day Thursday, telling the kids about the holiday! Plus, Thursday night I got to be present via Skype for my family Thanksgiving! Love them!




Hope you all had a great holiday! I know that "missing it" this year will definitely make me appreciate the parade and everything so much more next year!