Thanksgiving

I’ve been rather buried in a mess of stuff this year, and, well…I didn’t get it together in time for Thanksgiving. There were no posts on how to roast the best turkey – although I’m kind of in the camp of just put the dang thing in the oven for a few hours, andstop worryingso much about it – it’s just turkey. Last year I worked with a dinky oven and we had around a dozen diverse people over for dinner, so I just cut it up and oven-braised the beast, and no one complained. I think people were just happy to have fun with each other and eat together. (The wine helped as well, no doubt.)

And there aren’t going to be any posts about what to do with turkey leftovers. Sorry, but it doesn’t get any better than turkey Tetrazzini.

Because I live in Paris, there’s no run-up to Thanksgiving. There are no supermarket ads imploring us to buy canned yams, marshmallows (I wish!), stuffing mixes, and discounted turkeys. My social media streams aren’t full of French food bloggers posting recipes and Thanksgiving tips. It’s just another day for them, and those of us who live here. Some folks are having dinners this weekend because it’s a “school night” so if you’re going to have a big dinner party, it’s better to do it on the weekend when folks don’t have to wake up early to go to work.

I’ve also been a bit preoccupied with the news of the storm on the east coast in America a few weeks ago, and this week, watching another sad chapter in a decades-long struggle. War never really solves anything – Europe is now unified and Americans and Vietnamese seem to be a-ok with each other. Unfortunately this situation seems unresolvable at the moment, but when a chef from one of the regions of conflict gave me a big hug after I told him how much I loved his cooking during a trip there, it made a certain someone who isn’t necessarily overly emotional well-up just thinking about it as he writes about it still, at this particular moment. Those five seconds were the highlight of the year for me.

(The other was that we got to see Anderson Cooper on CNN here in Europe this week.)

我还一直在浏览最近从朋友那里出来的食谱，他们的才华震惊了。许多人是初次的作者，当我手中拿着书籍时，我很荣幸能称他们为朋友。有些是美食博主，如果您喜欢他们的博客，请通过购买书籍来支持他们。(And I’m not plugging my own, for a change.) It’s a small gesture that adds up in the long-run and it’s a nice way of giving thanks to them for entertaining and feeding us, which is certainly the spirit of Thanksgiving. I haven’t been able to feature all of them because there are other things I wanted to write about here – like咆哮和raving– but during the next few weeks, I’ll be highlighting some of these books and recipes on the site.

我今天的午餐是汤。我做了一个变体Potato-Leek Soup，这似乎适合本赛季。这有点冷，很快，但是如今的巴黎很少见，阳光正畅通。每天，在我们进入深处之前，温度（和阳光）会进一步倾斜la grisaille, the cold gray of winter, which drives people indoors until the spring.

My hope is that for all of you out there, that you have a good day, whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving with a big feast with friends or family, going to school or to work, like any other day, or having soup for lunch, too.

而且，如果有人有土豆 - leek tetrazzini的食谱，我全都是耳朵。

(Comments closed, enjoy the holiday – and peace and happiness, wherever you are!)