Thanksgiving in pictures

Thanksgiving was some of the most fun I've had since being here. We ended up having thirteen people, including six Americans, two Brits, one Australian, one German, two Spanish and one French. We had a lot of fun introducing people to new foods, and everyone seemed to have a really great time. :)

(Note: most of these pictures are stolen from facebook, and are not mine.)

Ryan, Hannah, Maty and I spent most of Wednesday preparing, so Hannah's first Thanksgiving experience was as a cook instead of just as a guest. Here she's learning to make "winnebagos" (or rutabagas, if you're not Michael). So delicious. :)

Maty (pronounced mah-TAY), doing battle with the pumpkin. You can't get canned pumpkin in France, so we bought a whole one and then cut it into chunks and cooked it in the microwave. (More on French microwaves in a future post, probably.) Then we spent literally hours forcing the cooked pumpkin through a sieve to give it a smooth texture for pie. Maty realized that using a whisk with a mortar-and-pestle motion would make it go way faster than just pushing (which basically didn't work at all), and subsequently got stuck finishing it. It was so worth it, though.

Making whipped cream for the pie. (I'm not sticking my hand in it; I'm sprinkling in sugar.) Everyone was really in awe of the fact that I made whipped cream with a whisk instead of a mixer, hehe. It's really not that hard.

We decided that turkey was too much of a hassle, and I'm glad we did - some other assistants special-ordered one (which I gather was seen as somewhat similar to ordering a whole sheep instead of some mutton) and paid something like 99€, or in other words about $10/lb. Instead, Ryan and Hannah made amazing chicken, which was made with carrots and onions and oranges and roasted standing upright on the beer cans. The beer steamed up and made it moist and delicious, and also made for some amazing gravy.

We were afraid we were going to run out of food, so we made something like 2kg of mashed potatoes, which was absurd. Also pictured: stuffing, gravy, chicken, brussels sprouts, rutabagas with burnt onions, corn casserole (which was amazing), and cornbread (which was - well, the taste was mostly there, but the texture was closer to a brick than we might have hoped).
Quite the spread.

Delicious, delicious pies. Two pumpkin, one apple. All our hard work with the pumpkin was definitely worth it here. I don't think anyone except the six Americans had tasted it before, and everyone was fairly suspicious of the idea of a sweet pumpkin dish, but as far as I know everyone really liked it. (Especially me - pumpkin pie is probably my favorite dessert. :D)

Hannah and Michael

Raquel, Lizzy and Hannah

Ana, Raquel, Ryan, Lizzy, Michael, me and Hannah. :)

And a last shot of pie, because it really was that delicious.

Overall, a night of good food and better friends. As it should be.