F Train to Paris

In which a Jewish family from Brooklyn moves to Paris, France for two years of work, school, and adventures.

 

Happy Thanksgiving. So, how do the French celebrate Thanksgiving? They don't, of course, everyone knows that. And how do Americans living in Paris celebrate Thanksgiving? In one of two ways: they ignore it, or they postpone it. Today is an ordinary school and work day (unless you work at the American Embassy or attend the American School of Paris, I suppose), so it's not really a convenient day to schedule a massive feast. Better to postpone it to the weekend, then get together with your American friends to eat turkey with all the trimmings.

We fall into the other camp. For us, one of the joys of living in Paris is simply ignoring Thanksgiving. We didn't talk about it today at all. If I happen to come across some cranberries tomorrow, perhaps I'll make cranberry sauce for Shabbat. But I won't go out of my way to find them.

Instead of eating turkey and cranberry sauce, we had salad, fish (unclear what kind exactly, although it was very good nevertheless) accompanied by gratin dauphinois, followed by a charlotte of chocolate and pears for dessert. This dinner took place at the home of Gilles, a colleague and friend of Ralph's, and his petite amie Anne. They very charmingly invited us over for dinner (without children), which had nothing at all to do with Thanksgiving. A lovely time was had by all.

 

posted by: pariskleinmans at 21:45 | link | comments |