Thanksgiving? Alert the Press!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving. My Thansgiving story includes the usual turkey and stuffing...as well as three forms of French media and a French guy named Antoine.

Here´s how it all started: the grève. There was a lot of striking going on in France (comme d´habitude), you probably read about it in the paper. It was extremely annoying because it was difficult to go anywhere. Anyway, the night the strike began, I was almost stuck in Metz. I thought it was set to start the following day. There was, however, one bus to take me back to Pont-a-Mousson. No one seemed to know where the bus stop was so I wandered around with other stranded SNCF customers looking for a way home. I heard someone ask, ``Does the bus stop at Pont-a-Mousson?´´ and I was like, ``I hope so! I have to go there as well.´´Enter, Antoine.

Antoine is a 21-year-old guy studying history who is extremely French (in the worst way). But anyway, it turns out he lives right across from me. Thinking it couldn´t hurt to have another French friend in town, I invited him to meet me and the other 4 assistants at the pub that Friday night. He met us there and Laura and I made the (mistake?) of telling him about our Thanksgiving plans and how I had ordered a turkey from the butcher. This was in between his history lectures on the 2nd World War and a few partriotic tirades. By the end of the night we were all just like, if I hear la deuxième guerre mondiale one more time, I might scream. I like a good history lesson as much as the next guy, but 2 hours nonstop in French is a bit much for me during a Friday night out. Anyway, he is really really nice, but in small doses. We got a good laugh out of situation. Little did we know, there were many laughs to come.

The next day, Antoine sent me a message that he found all of the food for our Thanksgiving dinner. I was confused. Why was he looking for food? Two of the other assistants randomly met up with him at the cafe and he explained that he talked to the town board of shopkeepers and they decided they would like to sponsor our dinner out of the goodness of the season or something. Huh? Where´s the catch?

This was great news though, because Laura and I were stressing a bit about the whole turkey situation, never having cooked one before, let alone in France, where the Celcius/metric differences are bound to make any culinary venture ten times more difficult. Also, I was having trouble ascertaining he exact size of the turkey and whether it would fit in my tiny oven. When we called the butcher, he just repeated over and over, ``it´s not a chicken! it´s not a chicken!´´ Thank you for that helpful information.

Anyway, Antoine took us to meet with the head of the association, Jean-Luc. He is a really nice jolly guy and he really just wanted to give us a turkey and get a little good publicity for his association. Awesome.

The next day, Antoine called again and said something about an interview and the newspaper. Later that day, Laura, Chris (the British assistant) and I were interviewed for the newspaper and the radio. I have no idea what I said. When it was over, we were like, I can´t believe we just gave a radio interview in French. And Chris was wondering why he was even there, he was like, ``why am I giving interviews about Thanksgiving, I´m not even American!´´

Okay, so when Thanksgiving Day finally arrived, Laura and I went with Antoine to pick up the turkey. They had cooked it and everything, all we had to do was reheat it! They had invited a TV news crew as well to get us all smiling with the turkey and ask a few questions. I was nervous. Giving a TV interview in French is even more nerveracking than a radio one! Laura and I kept glancing at each other trying not to laugh. The whole thing just seemed so ridiculous! But really nice. We also got a copy of the newspaper, which had the article as well as our picture. The title of the article was ``Une dinde internationale´´ or, An International Turkey. Ha.

So, we returned to the apartment with a cooked turkey, many bottles of champagne and wine, as well as spinach and boiled potatoes (don´t ask, somewhere along the way we got our wires crossed on traditional turkey day foods). Laura made a pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce the night before (which was actually really good, despite the fact that they weren´t actually cranberries). She also made stuffing. I made a spinach casserole and bought some appetizers. And we made mashed potatoes as well (as Chris is an expert) so we pretty much had everything except pumpkin pie! The meal was a little heavy on spinach, haha, but it was delicious.

Antoine couldn´t come until later because he had to work. Two minutes after taking off his coat, he took out a volume of French poetry and began dramatically reading Prevert poems to the group.

I thought I would be really homesick on Thanksgiving, and while nothing beats Thankgiving at Aunt Kathy´s, the absurdity of my Thanksgiving took my mind off it completely! Next year, I will probably miss sharing Thanksgiving with a Spanish girl, a German girl, a British guy and the regional press. When we sit down to cut the turkey, I will think, wait, where are the reporters?