Giving thanks

That sounds very religious and solemn, but for me what it means is more like "thank my lucky stars!" I am so thankful that I've been able to live this life in France for the past 13 years. I'm grateful for the good food, for the productive garden, and for the home improvements that we have been able to organize and complete since we came to live here — this year, the greenhouse and the new shower.

Meanwhile, we'll have our own special Thanksgiving today. I got a beautiful lamb roast from the butcher counter at SuperU for our dinner. It's a gigot d'agneau désossé, roulé, et ficelé — a de-boned leg of lamb rolled and tied to make a roast for the oven. Walt and I started eating lamb on Thanksgiving 20 or more years ago, because it made sense compared to having roast turkey in both November and December.

So it's our French version of a Thanksgiving meal, because roast leg of lamb with the little green beans called flageolets verts is the classic French Sunday or holiday dinner.

And then something from the garden: Tuscan (dinosaur) kale. Greens (braised in white wine with duck fat), beans (with duck fat and garlic), and a lamb roast for Thanksgiving in the Loire Valley.

And something else from the garden: a pumpkin to be made into pumpkin pie by the pastry-chef-in-residence.

To start the meal, something sort of exotic which is a French specialty and a holiday treat: foie gras de canard. It's the liver of a fattened duck, cooked in duck fat, and eaten with toasted French bread delivered by our porteuse de pain, to whom we say Merci !

And with candied figs, cooked with port wine, sugar, and star anise. The figs were a gift from friends, to whom we again say thanks.

It's always a strange feeling to celebrate a holiday that the culture you live in doesn't know much about, much less observe. You get it in your head that everybody has the day off, a lot of business are closed, people are celebrating at home. And then you realize it's just a normal weekday for everybody but you.