Holidays

I celebrated thanksgiving with a cornucopia of nationalities including Americans, Indians, Brits and French. I was not aware that there is an international fascination with this holiday, presumably because of the tv show Friends (at least four people recounted to me memories of Joey walking around with a turkey on his head as their connection to Thanksgiving). Below is a photo of Camille surveying her first Thanksgiving experience while Fenouilla, Irish, draws a bottle of wine and celebrates her second ever Thanksgiving. You may notice that there are turkeys on the board; the one under the "giving" is my handturkey. This is a skill that I did not know could be considered as such until I met the French. Now there are at least four frenchies who can whip out a handturkey with skill that counters the handturkey drawers of Ohio (if you want to blow a frenchperson's mind and have already tried out your handturkey, I suggest carving a pumpkin. People of all sophistication levels lose their shit).

Here is almost the entire Thanksgiving gang. We went around and each said what we were thankful for. Despite not hosting the event and only making one dish, everyone included me in their thanks because I am American and therefore intrinsically responsible for Thanksgiving. Halfway through the meal when the tryptophan started to kick in, Nupur (an Indian friend) mentioned to a Frenchperson that Thanksgiving is actually for her and Sonam (another Indian friend), since she had been told by a Frenchperson that "Indians started Thanksgiving." I did not join the conversation because I began choking on a green bean.

(Thanksgiving took place in a classroom because we mostly have tiny European homes.)

This past weekend, Cambray came from Limoges. We spent her visit drinking Christmas ale at a bar that reminds her of Minnesota (her home), watching Miss France with eighteen year old boys who put "chocolate cookie flavored sirop" in their beer, running to catch buses with the desperation of people who have felt the cold enter their bones, telling each other what to wear and then borrowing clothes instead, and drinking Hot Chocolate lined with Nutella. Below, Cambray is trying to break into the 12th century castle near my house. No luck.

We also went to Clermont-Ferrand to visit Amanda. She took us to one of the Christmas Markets going on in C-F. Unlike the Christmas Market near my home, which looked like White Elephant gifts and Etsy knock-offs had been impregnated by neon wool, this Christmas Market was full of appropriate amounts of christmas cheer and vin chaud.

And here are Cambray and Amanda buying the vin chaud (warm fruit infused red wine).

And here we are feeling enchanted.

This is one of the main squares in C-F, looking festive. I took this picture while eating roasted chestnuts for the first time. They taste grilled (and delicious) and look like small brains once unshelled.

After spending the day in Clermont, I came home alone and met up with Sonam and Nupur. Sonam invited us over for dinner where she taught me how to make an Indian dish (!!!) and now I am determined to stop being someone who eats the same dish for weeks at a time.

I told Sonam and Nupur that I would make them a "traditional" dish in return, thus screwing myself because I do not know any traditional dishes. I am considering making chili, but will probably end up doing burritos for them and then providing homemade guac and salsa (last week, my landlady had friends over for dinner and she handed out a small jar of salsa as a fancy garnish. After personal investigation, I found it to be a jar of slightly sweet ketchup masquerading as "salsa a la mexicaine.")

I probably will not update again until after Christmas, since Jake is coming to visit me and I am so distracted by happiness I could run into a wall.