While in France there are a LOT of holidays, one of my favorites, Thanksgiving, does not exist here. So, you may be wondering what I did.
Well, not only did I teach about it to my students for about two to three weeks, but I also did celebrate it.
As it turns out, there are quite a few other Americans here in Saint Etienne, so we all got together and threw a potluck! Yes there was turkey, a fresh kill, from what I heard. Yes there was cranberry sauce – something pretty hard to come by here.
All in all there was a LOT of food. Apparently there was a rule that if you didn’t bring a dish, you could only eat a coaster size plate’s worth. Luckily for me, I made an applesauce cake (in a convection oven, by the way) with cream cheese (difficult to find also) frosting that I made myself.
It did turn out alright, though I’m not certain it was cooked all the way in the very center.
In any case, it was a cool atmosphere and I was happy to have been with others for the holiday.