Day 35 – Thanksgiving Sunday

Every American knows that Thanksgiving is on Thursday. However, of course, Thanksgiving is not celebrated outside of America. On Thursday the kids are therefore in school and Desney is at work. As it turns out this year it’s the opening day of our Salon du Vin des Vignerons Indépendants (Independent Winegrowers Wine Exposition). Arlene therefore decided to do Thanksgiving today.

Desney had already gone wide and far to find a turkey yesterday and Arlene woke up in a cooking fury. By the time I got up, about 08:30, Arlene had already kicked Desney out of the kitchen for the day and was cooking up a storm. She soon realised she’d gotten herself in to quite a nightmare. It’s bad enough cooking in a foreign kitchen where you don’t know where anything is or how it works. She’s cooking in a foreign country. The turkeys ain’t the same, the sausage ain’t the same, the herbs ain’t the same… nothing’s the same! Add to this the complication that all of the spices and products in the house are all labelled in French it’s amazing she didn’t poison us! Arlene spent the entire day in the kitchen cooking. Every now and then she’d ask us where something was or what something was. The only really disturbing point appeared to be the potatoes. They had looking all over, yesterday at the markets, for sweet potatoes and hadn’t found any. Sweet potatoes are of course a vegetable indigenous to America and not the European continent. They ended up getting yams from an African store. But yams ain’t sweet potatoes. The colour was all off…

While Arlene cooked Desney had brought some work home and sat proofreading in the living room. I actually went down and hid in my office for several hours and went through some billing, accounting and tax stuff that had to get done. I actually felt quite productive by the end of the day. However I had forgotten to take either one of my two daily naps and realised what a mistake that was later. I took a quick nap at the end of the afternoon but people started arriving by 18:00.

Jessica had her friend Mercedes over and we had my best friend Robbie (the Croat) over. It’s always good to see Robbie if simply just to remind me that I have friends. There is a very special relationship and communication one has with a friend one’s known for almost 20 years. There are so many things we don’t have to say and so many things we can say without any pre- or after-thoughts. It’s always great to spend time with Robbie. It was also interesting to see the reactions between Robbie and Arlene who had not seen each other since Desney and I got married 17 years ago. It was quite fun to watch them politely complimenting each other with snide smiles on their faces.

Dinner was an elaborate affair starting with Champagne for aperitif with olives, nut and sliced sausages. At table we started with some Scottish smoked salmon, a spinach salad done with lemon and olive oil and what looked and smelled like a wonderful Chablis Premier Cru 2001 (Vaillons). The main meal was of course the turkey, which took a while to carve, the sausage stuffing, along with the yams and the green beans sautéed in garlic. The Beaune Premier Cru 2000 red we served looked and smelled great as well. Dessert was a beautiful rich chocolate cake which Desney had picked up at the bakery in the afternoon. We got down from table full to bursting as is customary for the Thanksgiving meal.

Robbie, Arlene and I sat around talking and playing with the computer/TV setup in the living room until late in the evening.

I was able to eat all day and get some things done. It was a good feeling day. The wine on the other hand, as well as my general lack of taste buds, was depressingly frustrating.