An Epic Thanksgiving

After our very successful Halloween party, American holidays became an interest to my fellow international classmates.  Therefore, we decided to host a Thanksgiving get together.  How to make it authentic with the resources we had was going to be a challenge but we were up for it.

Challenge #1: Turkey

I don't know what it is, but France has something against turkey…or maybe the whole world except America.  In Australia I could rarely find turkey in the deli meats and the same issue happens here is France.  I don't understand, it is SO good.  But we could not find a whole turkey to bake so we had to improvise by buying rotisserie chickens.  I can explain further in the next challenge more about the food.  Funny enough, on Wednesday we were at the supermarket looking at the rotisserie chicken when we ran into other Americans that were thinking the same thing, substituting chicken for turkey. 

Challenge #2: Kitchen

Our first thought was to book one of the residences communal kitchens.  Some of them have an oven and some are just big rooms that have a stove.  We would have been happy with either…there were none available.  So we put our thinking caps on and tried to think how to make a TON of food with the little kitchenette that we have in our rooms.  Honestly, this was never actually planned so we winged it…VERY SUCCESSFULLY.  Molly and Monica slaved away in Monica's room with 3 toaster ovens and 2 burners.  They managed to make a metric shit ton of mashed potatoes, stuffing, roasted carrots, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted garlic, gravy, and warm up the chickens.  So now you understand why we went for the already cooked chickens.

Challenge #3: Place to hold 30 people

Thanksgiving is also a time of being with the people you care about.  Being a small class of 33 people that see each other everyday we have grown close.  To get the real feel and appreciation for Thanksgiving, I wanted everyone to feel the family vibe by being in the same cozy room.  All the kitchens in the residence were booked, so we had to improvise.  Javier, for some weird reason, has a room that is bigger (not by much) than anyone else's.  He offered to try and fit everyone in it.  I wish I new the actual dimensions but you should get the idea that these rooms are not big.  Miraculously, 5 tables fit into the room and about 30 people fit around those tables.  Amazing…. I think yes. 

Challenge #4: Get people to eat way too much and not be able to move

Having 30 people to feed is always a challenge.  A way to compensate was the delegation of appetizers.  But we needed to make sure that there was enough "traditional" Thanksgiving dishes to have everyone try.  We decided that 6 chickens, 20 sacks of potatoes, 2 big batches of stuffing and 2 bags of carrots would do.  Lets just say, there were a lot of full people and still a lot of food left over.  A lot of food left over. 

In the end, all the challenges were accepted and completed.  We somehow managed to throw another successful American party. Maybe a Christmas one will be next…