Living in Paris, having Mona and Felix as guests, I decided to celebrate. I was h**l-bent on having a dinner with all the trimmings. What I didn’t anticipate was that we could have gone to the poshest restaurant in Paris and eaten for less than that dinner cost, but we wouldn’t have feasted on turkey-please don’t say “so what?”
Chemically treated über humongous birds do not exist in France. When I went to the butcher, he told me that it was impossible to buy a turkey large enough to feed twenty people before Christmas. These are free-range birds and they weren’t going to grow large enough just because I wanted one.
OK, that was no problem. Being resourceful and being able to add, I ordered two turkeys. Defeat would not be mine. Ah, hmmm, that was until I picked up the fowl in the morning only to realize there was no way both could possibly fit in one oven.
This has been the week of me becoming extremely friendly with the concierge. We usurped her oven and shuttled up and down five floors so we could baste both turkeys. Each time we went down to the ground floor apartment, we took a bottle of wine. After all, that was only polite.
Dinner was a roaring success! I will go to bed and sleep for a week, undoubtedly from the fact that the guests each brought a lovely bottle of wine-and there was no way we could insult anyone by not drinking all of them.
Since this is not a French holiday, dinner began 8 p.m. By the time we finished it was long after midnight (thank goodness someone brought a bottle of first-rate cognac). I wonder how our guests are going to be able to work today. But this is France, and I am the only one with a real hangover. Happily, Thanksgiving comes only once a year-it will take me that long to recover. But yesterday I’ll never forget. Nor will our guests, or the concierge.
Vivent les Américains (even if we are crazy).
