I Heart You, Target...

...but you cannot SERIOUSLY expect me to ditch the first Thanksgiving I've celebrated with my family in over two years to go shopping at midnight on the very early morning of Black Friday.

You see, I have not been training and preparing for this day like the crazy blonde lady you've been showing in your ads since last year. You know, the one wearing a red track suit and doing bicep curls with loaded baskets of crap to buy.



Last year, the sales began at four a.m. Now, they will begin at midnight. Hasn't she been through enough already? If you ask me, I'd say that she needs help.

Haven't you thought about what she has been putting her family through since last year? For all I know, she probably was so caught up with the Black Friday frenzy that she totally forgot to make time to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for her husband and two young children. And her kids probably think their Mommy doesn't love them.

I don't wanna end up like her, so it ain't gonna happen.

Next year, if you or any of your conglomerate cronies announce that you all will have a pre-Black Friday sale on Thanksgiving day itself, then I think I might find a nice cave to live in so I could avoid society for the rest of my life.

Sincerely,

Barb the French Bean

How I Nearly Killed Myself Cooking

For the famous and my very first attempt at making a Thanksgiving Day Meal, I had planned to tackle:

Turkey with mojo criollo

Black Beans and Rice

Candied Yams

Flan/Crème Caramel

There is something about preparing food that brings out the Dainty Domestic Diva in me. This Diva sports a '50s-style pearl necklace with an immaculate crisp, lacy white apron. It becomes pleasurable to know that with my own two hands and culinary expertise, I am capable of articulately feeding the people I love.

But don't worry: I certainly am not barefoot and pregnant while doing so! Besides, when I cook, I dress comfortably and bring out the overall slob that I truly am. My reality is quite different from my imagination...

Anyway, on Turkey Day, I woke up around 9 a.m., skipped breakfast and set off my cooking strategy. The game plan featured trouncing first the black beans in a pressure cooker while simultaneously baking mini-flans in the oven. Once the flans were finished, I would let them cool for hours and immediately progress to a smackdown of turkey roasting and annihilate those candied yams! I would leave boiling the rice and apéritif preparation for last.

Black Beans and Crème Caramel (take one)

The night before, I left the black beans soaking in water in a pressure cooker to soften them and quicken the cooking speed for the following day.

But I didn't use any ordinary pressure cooker. I used SEB.

This is my buddy, SEB. She is a pressure cooker and current BFF.

SEB was going to help me make the black beans I so craved around this time of year. Without SEB, boiling black beans would only be an impossible task that would take precious hours of my time and still result in beans with a rather crunchy texture; I know this from experience. That is why I am infinitely thankful that SEB gave me a much needed hand.

I have seen my mother use a pressure cooker countless times back in Miami and now it was my turn to experience handling black beans on my own! Prior to using SEB, I remembered my mother's sage wisdom in which I needed to fill the device halfway with water, heat it up and then wait for the little dial on top to start twirling rapidly and emit a FWHEEEEEEEEEE sound. I also needed to let SEB make the high-pitched noise for maybe 15 to 20 minutes.

I did as I was told. I filled SEB with water and organized the ingredients for the dish. It was then that I noticed that I was missing something crucial to the recipe: LAUREL LEAVES.

I thought I had some stored somewhere in my cabinet. I shifted the contents of canned peas and carrots and searched at the very back of the furniture. Nothing. I perhaps had discarded the bag of laurel leaves and hadn't recalled doing so...

Not wanting to jeopardize the recipe by excluding a key ingredient, I rushed to the phone and called Isabelle, my landlord's wife, to see if I could bum some leaves from her sure-to-be-better-stocked-than-mine kitchen. Well, not only did Isabelle have laurel leaves but also some fresh oregano from her garden! I also remembered that I was in need of some vanilla extract and sugar.

I evenutally tossed in the other ingredients with the black beans and then covered SEB with her metal top and screwed the topmost dial to firmly lock it in place. SEB sat patiently on the heated burner and I waited for the dial to go FWHEEEEEEEEEEE.

After 20 minutes, I noticed that SEB still hadn't made any noise.

In the meantime, I then searched for the little glass pots I normally use to make individual crème caramel. I couldn't find them. I found it very odd that they were suddenly gone because I could have sworn that I had stored them in the kitchen.

Something inside me said that I should once again ask Isabelle to see if, by any chance, she had had them. Then another part of me, the lazy, idiotic prideful side, said "nah, just use a different glass container."

I chose a receptacle that had sides that were at least half an inch thick. I filled it with four tablespoonfuls of sugar and added four teaspoons of water to create the caramel layer. I then needed to heat the sugar on top of the stove, so I placed the container on the burner.

Ha, ha, ha. That was a mistake.

A very BIG mistake. Little did I know that I had created a shrapnel ticking time bomb that would teach me a lesson on the thermodynamics of what happens to glass when it comes into direct contact with heat.

I tore open the windows to liberate the accrid haze and had the instinct of shutting off the burner. I stared at my disaster, helplessly gazing at the sugary syrup as it bubbled and boiled lugubriously in plain sight.

This is the aftermath:

My combustive glass container fiasco shattered how I viewed my cooking abilities. The Dainty Domestic Diva? More like Clumsy Two Legged Fire Hazard.

My perception of my surroundings also altered. My SEB was no longer a jolly, trusty kitchen aide if not a threatening murderer with a penchant for blood-thirsty vengeance.

I needed to check the beans. I gingerly unscrewed the black knob on SEB's top and...

...discovered that they had the consistency of plastic pellets.

What do I when I'm in trouble? I call for help.

Black Beans and Crème Caramel (take 2)

Help came in the form of Isabelle. As it turns out, she did have the little glass pots for the crème caramel. I wanted to kick myself in the head when I discovered that because I could have saved myself an extra moment of exploding shards and eventually scraping off burnt sugar. I also pointed out to her that, after perhaps 30 minutes, SEB still had not made any noise.

Her verdict? "You probably didn't screw it on completely."

Isabelle worked her magic and SEB suddenly got the message to sing:

She also suggested that in order to remove the crystallized bits of burnt sugar, I should apply a towel soaked with hot water. I did that.

Amazingly enough, the rest of my cooking quite went smoothly. Once SEB got on a roll with the beans, she engulfed my kitchen with aromas that struck me of my mother's.

I broke the nostalgia and proceeded to make the mini-flans.

Turkey and Candied Yams

I cooked that bird for nearly 3 hours. It was a bit dry but it was nonetheless quite tasty. And the candied yams (using sweet potatoes) were not too bad.

Overall, I was quite satisfied with my work, particularly the black beans.

Lesson learned: I will be better prepared for the next time I engage with concocting a complex recipe.

And as a finishing touch to my Thanksgiving meal, it began to snow outside. It snowed. On Thanksgiving day! It was clear that France wished me well for this fine evening.

(As an added touch of irony, I wrote this post while sitting at my kitchen table. It has considerably snowed in Dijon since last night, and the kitchen just so happens to be the warmest room in the apartment!)

Barb the French Bean

How Marshmallows Saved My Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is one of the biggest holidays in the United States and for an ex-patriate American that means not celebrating it for the second time in a row because I reside in a non-Thanksgiving-celebrating country.



Now, I am honestly more than ecstatic to be living in France and I wish nothing more than to live here for the rest of my life, but I admit that the thought of not feasting upon turkey while being accompanied by my mother, grandmother and Maddie, the Demon Chihuahua has impacted my perception of joy...or the lack of it. I reflected on just how much I want to see Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira host the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. need to sit down and say grace with my family prior to eating a sumptuous meal my mother spent the whole day preparing.


What especially tugs at my heartstrings is the food. Due to my Cuban-Colombian heritage, Thanksgiving in my house not only includes the traditionally obligatory large roasted bird, candied yams and, my mother's favorite, store-bought pumpkin pie but also a side of rice and black beans. The turkey in question is also marinated at least two days in advance using a special Cuban sauce called mojo criollo. Back in Miami, mojo criollo can be bought by the bottle at any store (though it certainly costs more than a dime a dozen). This is certainly not the case in France.



And in France, purchasing a whole turkey, let alone finding one, is rather difficult to accomplish during the month of November; the French feast upon gobble-gobbles during their Christmas dinners but whole turkeys are remarkably scarce around this time of the year.



As it was, a Thanksgiving with a mojo criollo marinated turkey and candied yams simply wasn't in my future.



My French BFF Mimi noticed that my usually perky demeanor had disappeared and I suddenly looked as if I had le cafard, or, as she translated it, to have the blues. It was something that I hadn't quite perceived myself until she pointed it out. I just believed that the absence of sunshine and inviting blue skies affected my overall state of mind, but that was just not it...



I had spent a few lessons teaching my students about Thanksgiving and its traditions and how it is a day that truly focuses on being with one's family. Ultimately, the subject of whether or not I would be going home to celebrate it made its way into our discussions. My repetitive answer is "no." It would not be economicably feasible for me to travel nearly 9,000 km from Paris to Miami and back for a 4-day span. I would not celebrate Thanksgiving with my family.



My high school students pitied me with morose understanding. Most of them stay during the week in Dijon where they are housed in the school's internat, ; they are in boarding school and often only see their families during the weekends when they return to their towns and villages. "C'est dommage," they said. It's too bad.



As a way of cheering me up after work, Mimi took me to a store called Villa Verde, located just in the outskirts of Dijon. In order for me to explain how wonderful this shop is, you must imagine it to be a mélange of a florist, a pet shop, a home goods, a specialty foods and even a Christmas village combined. A walk down the aisles of Villa Verde's festive and illuminating Noël decorations immediately brought a smile of wonderment to my face.




While shopping around and admiring the little ceramic musical Christmas houses, Mimi and I began to talk about the name of my dog and what my mother typical prepares makes for our Thanksgiving dinner.

As we approached Villa Verde's exit, we passed by the specialty foods section and saw wonderful artisanal French treats galore.




To my surprise, Mimi reached for the shelf and grabbed a sack containing miniature golden madeleines and an inviting container of pink and yellow marshmallows. She looked at me with a large smile and said "Here. I will buy these for you. These marshmallows are for your candied yams!"






And that was it.





That spontaneous act of kindness was all it took for me to decide that I should try to make Thanksgiving dinner this year and share it with my roommates.




I thought over what I could cook. The thought of preparing a full meal daunts me. I do not know how to make pumpkin pie but I sure do know how to make a mean flan. I could also attempt my mother's recipe for black beans and, of course, her candied yams. But what would I do about the turkey? How will I marinade it if I don't have mojo criollo at hand.




Then, the most genius idea that ever crossed my mind struck me! If my Cuban ancestors were able to concoct this staple of their diet, then I could certainly gather the ingredients to see how I would fare with it as well! Why didn't I think of this sooner?



Mimi and I went to Carrefour where I bought the necessary ingredients for mojo criollo, candied yams and, ultimately, a sizeable chunk of turkey breast (no way I was gonna try to look for a whole bird). I eventually got my mojo on...

...and placed it in a container with the turkey breast so the elixir could have at least two whole days to seep into the meat to create a delectable culinary marriage that reminds me of my mother's mastery in the kitchen.

I chuckled to myself as I glanced over my piebald marshmallows and imagined how adorable they would look contrasting with the orange of the sweet potatoes.

And, as a treat, I had a few madeleines.

Yes. I think I am ready to finally celebrate my first Thanksgiving in France. I have many reasons for which to be grateful this year. I am thankful that, despite being thousands of miles away from the people who I cherish the most, I am surrounded by beings who treasure as much as family.

I am thankful for being able to have a second chance to live once again in a place that feels like home to me.

Je suis très reconnaissante de la joie que je ressens chaque fois que je sors de chez moi, surtout quand je vais à mon travail. (I'm grateful for the joy I feel when I go to my job, y'all.)

I am extremely grateful for my friend Mimi and her kindness and it is with much love that I humbly dedicate this post to her. Je t'aime beaucoup, ma chère! Joyeux Thanksgiving!

And Happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers. Thank you so much.

Barb the French Bean