Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving is virtually unknown in Paris. It's just another Thursday. You don't see turkeys in the markets, nor cranberries, sweet potatoes, or pumpkin pie.

This year we decided to host a Thanskgiving dinner for my friends Dominique and Emmanuel and their three kids. Seven people for dinner in our tiny apartment - but that's what Thanksgiving is all about.

The first challenge was finding traditional foods and then finding a way to cook the turkey and several other dishes in my tiny oven. The solution? We have an excellent butcher nearby and were able to order a turkey which they roasted for us. Patrice had never eaten (or carved) a turkey before.


French pastry shops offer dozens of tasty desserts but they've never heard of pumpkin pie, so I decided to make one from scratch. I found a recipe and then had to translate into the metric system: How many grams in a teaspoon of cinnamon? How many milliliters in 12 ounces of cream? You get the idea.

However, everything turned out just fine as you can see in the photos below.

Serving the turkey which my guests had never eaten before

Dominique and daughter Claudia

Melissa and her father Emmanuel

Dominique, Claudia, Paolo and me

 I hope your Thanksgiving was as happy as ours.