Thanksgiving Turkey

To prepare for Thanksgiving I had one main goal: Find a Turkey! I found one at the first store I tried, which was Carrefour. Carrefour is enormous, like a Super Wal-Mart, except bigger. I looked everywhere for the bird-in the freezer section (the typical American place to begin), the meat section, back to the freezer section for another look. I saw no big fat turkeys.

Finally I asked the lady in the meat department where I could find a BIG turkey. Like for Christmas, I added. You mean Thanksgiving, she asked? Right. I guess they have heard of Thanksgiving in France. She asked me how big a turkey I wanted (5 kilos sounded good) and proceeded to explain that I could order one and pick it up in a few days. I was super excited!

Thanksgiving day rolled around and it was time to get the turkey. It wasn't a holiday here in France, of course, so the kids went off to school that morning except for Sophie, who had a sore throat. I hate going to Carrefour because it is ALWAYS busy, but I hoped the torrential downpour of rain would keep most people at home that day.

Unfortunately, it did not. The parking lot was as full as ever, maybe even worse than usual. Maybe there was a conspiracy against me that day because I am terrible under pressure and tend to procrastinate when I feel stressed. It was already after 11 am and I was still trying to figure out how I was going to make a pumpkin pie. So, I was very pleased when a woman in a parking spot right up by the entrance was leaving. I waited patiently as she unloaded her cart into her trunk, took her cart back and got into her car. By the time she slowly backed out I had already waited at least 4 full minutes. I had my blinker on and as soon as she cleared out, I started to pull forward.

To my dismay a small Citroen had entered from the row behind mine and pulled through an emtpy spot into MY empty spot! I was enraged! She lingered in her car until she realized I would not be moving and she would indeed have to walk right by me to get into the store. I glared, shook my fist and rolled down my window to say something. But what? I don't know any mean words in French.

I instantly thought of that scene from "Fried Green Tomatoes" where Kathy Bates (the middle-aged woman struggling with her weight, her place in life and her boring marriage) encounters a similar situation in a grocery store parking lot. She proceeds to ram her car over and over into the other car, screaming "You may be younger, but I have better insurance!"

My car here is already pretty beat up thanks to the crazy roads, so I seriously considered giving her car a nice thump, until Sophie said Mom, let's just find another spot. Aaah, the wisdom of a six year old. Besides, I had a turkey to buy!

We rushed in and headed straight for the meat department. I was happy to find my turkey ready and waiting, plucked, cleaned and weighed. 4.88 kilos for €19.87. Not bad! When we got home and I pulled Tom out of the plastic bag, I had to laugh at the little tuft of feathers around the ends of the drumsticks and the little bits of feather quills left in the skin. I was totally grossed out, but managed to pick out all of the little quills. I left the feathers though, because that is just funny, and no one eats that part of the bird anyway.

The turkey looks terrible in this picture. That's me holding the turkey, looking like a Proboscis Monkey.

We didn't eat until 7:45 that evening, which is about four hours after a typical Thanksgiving. But the kids didn't get home from school until 5 pm, and our guests were busy until 7:30. But all in all, it turned out to be a great Thanksgiving. This year I was thankful for our American guests who appreciated a real home cooked Thanksgiving dinner and also for the internet, where I found the recipes for everything I made!