over the river and through the woods, to raymond and amandine's we go

Many of you have been asking about our Thanksgiving dinner. Sorry it's taken me so long. I've fallen a bit behind, so I'm just going to publish what I had started to write and let the pictures tell the rest of the story. Remember that there are always more pictures in my Picasa account than I post here. You can link to it at the left of the page.

I started cooking at about noon on Thursday. I made two pumpkin pies in my dorm room, and Colin came over to help. More specifically, to give me moral support (whose importance is not to be underestimated). I also did all of the prep work for the stuffing, leaving it only to be baked. I showered and took a tiny pause, and Ethan showed up at about 16h15. With Colin and Ethan's help I carried the pies and some ingredients to Raymond and Amandine's apartment. We split up into two groups and Colin, Raymond and Amandine went to Auchan (a large supermarket) and Ethan and I went to Monoprix (another large supermarket) to get the remaining ingredients. Ethan and I spent the gross majority of our shopping time looking for dried cranberries, which I intended to substitute for frozen or fresh ones. I asked a couple of employees for help finding canneberges, the French word for "cranberries," but no one knew what I was talking about! When I finally just asked where to find the dried fruits, I found them: labeled "Dried Cranberries," no less!

We also substituted three chickens for a turkey, which worked rather well considering we had two very tiny ovens instead of one large one.

Overall, the meal was wonderful. Nothing too fancy, but we had chicken, roasted vegetables, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie and spiced apple cider to finish. It was a hit with the non-Americans, too. We were four French, one Irish, one Japanese, one Colombian, and five Americans.