Since the guys didn't have Thanksgiving Day off, we (Matthew and I, and two other American families) decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on Sunday instead. For some reason, I volunteered to be in charge of the turkey. If we had been in the US, this would have been no problem. I would have gone to Bi-Lo, used my turkey points, and picked up my free turkey. Matthew would have headed to Wal-Mart and bought gallons and gallons of peanut oil, and the biggest dilemma of the turkey cooking process would have been what to inject the bird with before deep frying it to a golden, juicy, crispy 10-15 lbs of yummy-ness.
But, alas, we are not in the US. So our turkey adventures started several weeks ago. Matthew and I (yes, I made Matthew go with me for this little French speaking errand) went to the local Chamalieres butcher to order our turkey. We had been told by French friends that it is tradition for the French to eat turkeys at Christmas, so the idea of ordering a whole bird wouldn't be unusual, we were just about a month too early. Matthew explained to the butcher that we were Americans and there was a holiday we wanted to celebrate, and eating a turkey was tradition. The butcher told us he would have to call his poultry guy, and we needed to call back and confirm. Pas de problème! Whew! That was easy.
Matthew called back the following week (still giving the butcher about a 10-day's notice). Again, he was told that it was no problem, in fact the only problem might be finding a bird small enough for our request. So, Friday morning arrives, and confidently, I head to the butcher to pick up the turkey. I am met with blank stares like they have no idea what I am talking about. I do finally pick out a phrase that I took to mean that they were saying Matthew never called to confirm. Well, my French is definitely not at a level that I can try to argue with them the fact that Matthew had indeed called to confirm. He asked me if tomorrow (Saturday) would be too late. "Non, ça marche. Merci beaucoup!" Saturday morning, Matthew and I (yes, I took Matthew with me, just in case...) went back to the butcher. Even though it was Saturday and the place was packed, as soon as we walked in they all recognized us (those crazy Americans that want a turkey in November!), waved us to the front and produced a turkey wrapped up and in a plastic bag. The lady at the register says, "cinquante.....euros...". Cinquante-something? Surely I heard wrong. (for those of you whose, if it's possible, french is worse than mine, cinquante is fifty!) Nope, I didn't hear wrong, the turkey was 56 euros! Let's do a little math. If we convert the euros to dollars, that would be about $84. The turkey was about 5 kilos, which converts to 11 lbs. So, this bird was $7.63/lb! I know I saw a commercial where Wal-Mart was selling turkeys for $0.38/lb! Now, not only did we spend our life savings on a turkey, but the pressure was really on. I had never cooked $84 worth of meat!
Sunday arrives, and it is time to cook the bird. After a small meltdown, Matthew helped me pull myself back together. We decided to cook the turkey in the crock pot (after a lot of research online). In order to fit the bird, we first had to dismember the turkey into big chunks. Into the crock-pot went onions, carrots, celery, lemon wedges, and garlic. The meat was slathered with a butter herb mixture, and one cup of white wine was poured over the top. Lid on. Heat on high. 5 hours later, Voila! We pulled the pieces out onto a baking sheet in order to reheat the meat and crisp up the skin once we got to the Pages' apartment.
We had a great night with American friends and LOTS of American food (broccoli casserole, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, rice, gravy, turkey, sweet potato casserole, Jiffy cornbread- thanks Mom!, and sweet tea). We also had "ham", but you can read Jen's blog for her Thanksgiving meat adventure (and to see pictures from the night). We also had pumpkin pie and apple cake for dessert. It is definitely hard to be so far from family during the holidays, and Matthew and I really looking forward to being home for Christmas! Hopefully there will be a free fried turkey in our near future!
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