A French Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and this is the first time that I haven't been home to celebrate and stuff my face with food!! I didn't get the long holiday that I am used to and I didn't have easy access to a Thanksgiving staple: pumpkin. I didn't let the distance from American get me down, I brought Thanksgiving to France. Me and my American roomie, Leslie, made our favorite Thanksgiving dishes. Our menu consisted of: chicken, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, mash potatoes, apple pie and pumpkin pie. It was glorious, considering that we couldn't find half of the ingredients that we needed and that our mom's weren't here to help us cook. We both love pumpkin pie, but France doesn't seem to agree with us. It took us forever to find an actual pumpkin, so we knew finding canned pumpkin would be nearly impossible. The week before Thanksgiving, we settled for making pumpkin from scratch. We found a field of pumpkins and causally took some home with us. They were free, right? We opened them up, cleaned off the seeds and baked them, then steamed the remaining chunks. We then carved out the flesh and added the necessary ingredients to make pumpkin pie filling. The pumpkin crisp wasn't the best, but for what we had, it was pretty great. We wanted to introduce our favorite holiday to our French friends; however, they had prior commitments, so we just had a lovely feast at home. Laura made us Pilgrim hats that we wore during dinner. Laura loved her first Thanksgiving meal and I am hoping she will take it back with her to England. Being a day of thanks, here are a few of the things that I am thankful for: my family back home who loves, supports and prays for me, my awesome roomies who I was so blessed to meet (and Chez Hyde Paul) and the opportunity to do something I love in a place that I love even more. Happy Thanksgiving y'all :)