cooking

How My French Husband Hijacked Thanksgiving

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Hey guys,
I get texts and emails all year around requesting this post which is consistently in the top five most viewed every year.  “Re-post the one about your husband stealing Thanksgiving from your mom!” They’ll write. Or, “What is the name of that one about your husband and his disrespect for the turkey?” 

But mostly they request his recipe for the leek bread pudding (Which, unfortunately,  I am not at liberty to reveal since that recipe resides in his head and that is a neighborhood too dangerous for me to visit!)

Anyhow, I like to wait for the appropriate time of year‚ which is now, to lovingly harass the big guy.  So, take a look. If you know him you’re going to smile and if you don’t, well, I think you’ll want to.

Here’s to the big French guy who stole my heart — and then hijacked my favorite meal!
Cheers!

PS. REAL men always use pink rubber oven mitts! 

Carry on & Happy Thanksgiving!
xox

JB


It happened over several years, with the subtle finesse we’ve come to expect from the French.

He entered our family just under fifteen years ago.
He is a gourmand extraordinaire and an accomplished cook in his own right; but he ingratiated himself in the beginning, acting as the sous chef for my mother who is the culinary queen of our family—then slowly, skillfully, and sneakily—He hijacked Thanksgiving.

The only demand he acquiesces to is that it must be an ORGANIC turkey.
“No antibiotics, no hormones…no taste” he sing-songs sarcastically under his breath as he places the order every year.

I suppose we should be grateful that he hasn’t decided to switch fowl on us yet. Next year it could be pheasant or duck in the center of the table.

See, that’s the thing, we, my siblings and I, we LOVE and crave all year ‘round, my mom’s traditional Thanksgiving feast. The one we ate as kids. The meal whose perfection is so sublime it should never be messed with. EVER.

Yet…the now reigning chef in our holiday kitchen—the one with the red passport—HE  little by little, year after year, has modified each dish so completely that it bears little if any, resemblance to the original.

And my mom doesn’t give a hoot!
She’s just so thrilled that someone has taken over the culinary heavy lifting; along with the fact that I finally found a husband—and he’s French—that she sits back and happily eats what she is served; doling out the compliments like Tic-Tacs at a cigar shop.

Benedict Arnold.

This European guy feels no sense of urgency—he doesn’t start the turkey until late morning.

I remember waking up as a child, the entire house already heavy scented with the aroma of a turkey that had been in the oven for hours. Now I sit and watch the Thanksgiving parade, eyeing him suspiciously as he lingers over his coffee and Sudoku.

You can’t rush the French—about anything, most especially cooking—it shows disrespect and they just won’t stand for it.

And yet…he shows the old hen no respect. He’s rude to her, slathering her with butter and olive oil and then flinging her, breast down, legs in the air (the turkey, not my mother) into a 500-degree oven for the first twenty minutes.

His mashed potatoes are loaded with creme Fraiche, truffle salt, and a pound of butter…yet oddly enough—not a single calorie. Oh, the French.

His vegetable of choice is the brussel sprout. The recipe is so elaborate, with shredded bacon and Gruyère in a balsamic reduction; that he’s only allowed to make them every other year.

That allows us to have the green beans in mushroom soup with the dried onion rings on top for the alternating years. He would never deign to eat that slop. We, on the other hand, squeal with delight in gleeful anticipation of this mushy mess of soupy goodness while his face assumes that pinched look of French disapproval.

Maybe the worst atrocity against the holiday is the stuffing; or lack thereof. He was raised in France. They don’t know from stuffing. They have bread pudding.

This year he is repeating the mushroom and leek bread pudding that he served last Thanksgiving. It really is delicious, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not my mom’s stuffing and it doesn’t go well with gravy – if you can imagine that.

As long as we’re talking gravy. His gravy is ridiculously smooth and savory, I’ll hand him that. No one can figure out how he does it and I still haven’t caught him in the act of making it. I’m convinced it is delivered by Trappist monks to the back door just before we sit down.

He doesn’t care much for cranberry sauce so my mom still makes hers, which is not that crap in the can. Hers has chunks of real berries, more like a chutney and…oh sorry, I drooled.

Yams and sweet potatoes are not his things either so he’s given us the okay to make my mom’s killer Sweet Potato Casserole. It is heart-stoppingly delicious. La petite mortit is THAT good.

Then there was the year he decided no pumpkin pie. Instead, he whipped up a pumpkin-ish, cheese-cakey, soufflé sort of thing—and a Tarte Tartan.

It’s been ten years, and I’m just getting over it.

His last act of hijackery is the fact that he does not deliver to the table a perfectly browned bird ready to be carved.

Nope, no Norman Rockwell moment at our house.

Instead, with knives so sharp they can slice a tomato, he carves the turkey up in the kitchen like a skilled butcher, arranging it artistically by sections on a white platter; placing the drumsticks on the sides like exclamation points. I’ve actually come to appreciate the expediency of serving the bird this way.
White meat on the left, dark meat on the right.
Voila!

But this is a day about giving thanks and although He has hijacked this most American of meals, I must admit that we are lucky and ever so grateful to have this Frenchman in our family.

Every. Single. Year. He takes us on another culinary adventure, expanding our palates by spending weeks shopping, hours chopping and delivering to our family such a carefully thought out and meticulously prepared and delicious feast.

Honey, we love you!

Now let’s eat!

Happy Thanksgiving!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/how-my-french-husband-hij_b_8547286.html

 

How My French Husband Hijacked Thanksgiving ~ Reprise

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This is reprise from last year that my friends still quote back to me. Ha!
Carry on,
xox


Hey guys,
Here’s a holiday favorite that this year I’ve been able to put on the Huffington Post.
Take a look. If you know him you’re going to smile and if you don’t, well, I think you’ll want to.

The big French guy who stole my heart — and then hijacked my favorite meal!
Cheers!
PS. REAL men use pink rubber oven mitts! Bam!
xox

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/how-my-french-husband-hij_b_8547286.html

Entering The Home Stretch

image

It’s Tuesday morning.
The start of day three of my sort-of-self-imposed green drink fast.

My stomach is growling so loud it woke up the dog.
It sounds like the insistent, angry growl of a lion eyeballing a Gladiator like a pork chop.

I would kill for a pork chop right now. A thick juicy slice of pig-on-a-plate.
Or bacon.
OMG. Don’t get me started on bacon. If I smelled the savory aroma of bacon cooking right now I would drown in my own saliva—I just know it.

Instead of a mass of bloated puffiness, after two days I am now all gaunt and boney.
Seriously.
Okay. Not really. But anyway.

“Feel that!” I urged my husband last night in bed, taking his hand and rubbing it down my right side.
He humored me with a couple of hand passes before rolling over.
“Those are my RIBS! I can count them. Do you know how long it has been since I could count my ribs? I am literally wasting away.”

I heard him snicker from his side of the bed now to be referred to as Outer Siberia.

On Sunday night, that same guy stood in the kitchen and finished off two pieces of cheese pizza and half bottle of wine while I stood feeding kale into the blender.

“It doesn’t count if you’re standing. Everybody knows that” he responded to my dirty looks. “But in solidarity I’ll eat power bars and protein shakes for the next three days.”

What a guy.
As of this morning, he’s lost seven pounds. SEVEN POUNDS! In TWO days!

I have never weighed myself. I go by how my clothes fit. Besides, for me this is about finding clarity, not weight loss.
Yeah, right.

But my gaunt and boney self wants to hurt him—just a little.
I can’t lie. I’m too hungry to lie. It takes too much energy to lie.

My dreams have changed. They have been colorful and epic in their scale and scope.
I dreamt of swimming and running and laughing and drums.
And so has my sleep.
When my eyes opened this morning, BAM! I was awake. Wide awake.
No sluggish slugginess, no urge to meditate or ask questions.
Just BAM! Up and Adam. Protein shake, here I come!


It’s now 9 a.m. and I’m going out to run all my errands. Too Da Loo!


It is now after three and I ran every errand with the speed and efficiency of a woman in labor on a scavenger hunt.
Then I came home and chopped up some shit, made my mom’s sweet potato soufflé and baked a pie.
I also garlanded a wreath within an inch of its life and planted some white poinsettias while the pie was in the oven. I even found my smile—it was hiding in the kitchen junk drawer.

Who am I? I don’t even recognize me.

So clarity…

It is clear I have waaaaay more energy That is for sure.
And I’m not hungry anymore.
And I may be taking this whole thing a tad too far. I accidentally licked some baked sweet potato off the spoon and promptly spit it into the sink. Crazy, right?

It’s a Decathlon people, not a sprint, and I must not cheat—tomorrow is the home stretch.

Okay, enough chit-chat, it’s time for tea.

Lots of love from your gaunt and boney, seriously delusional, green drinking, whirling dervish, pie bakin’ friend—me.

Carry on,

xox

How My French Husband Hijacked Thanksgiving

image

Hey guys,
Here’s a holiday favorite that this year I’ve been able to put on the Huffington Post.
Take a look. If you know him you’re going to smile and if you don’t, well, I think you’ll want to.

The big French guy who stole my heart — and then hijacked my favorite meal!
Cheers!
PS. REAL men use pink rubber oven mitts! Bam!
xox

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/how-my-french-husband-hij_b_8547286.html

HOW MY FRENCH HUSBAND HIJACKED THANKSGIVING

IMG_0871

It happened over several years, with the subtle finesse we’ve come to expect from the French.

He entered our family just under fifteen years ago.
He is a foodie extraordinaire and an accomplished cook in his own right, but he ingratiated himself in the beginning, acting as the sous chef for my mother who is the culinary queen of our family—then slowly, skillfully, and sneakily—He hijacked Thanksgiving.

The only demand he acquiesces to is that it must be an ORGANIC turkey.
“No antibiotics, no hormones…no taste” he sing-songs sarcastically under his breath as he places the order every year.

I suppose we should be grateful that he hasn’t decided to switch fowl on us yet. Next year it could be pheasant or duck in the center of the table.

See, that’s the thing, we, my siblings and I, we LOVE and crave all year ‘round, my mom’s traditional Thanksgiving feast.

The one we ate as kids. The meal whose perfection is so sublime it should never be messed with. EVER.

Yet…the now reigning chef in our holiday kitchen—the one with the red passport—HE  little by little, year after year has modified each dish so completely that it bears little if any, resemblance to the original.

And my mom doesn’t give a hoot!
She’s just so thrilled that someone has taken over the culinary heavy lifting; along with the fact that I finally found a husband—and he’s French—that she sits back and happily eats what she is served; doling out the compliments like Tic-Tacs at a cigar shop.

Benedict Arnold.

This European guy feels no sense of urgency—he doesn’t start the turkey until late morning.

I remember waking up as a child, the house already heavy with the aroma of a turkey that had been in the oven for hours. Now I sit and watch the Thanksgiving parade, eyeing him suspiciously as he lingers over his coffee and sudoku.

You can’t rush the French—about anything, most especially cooking—it shows disrespect and they just won’t stand for it.

Yet…he shows the old hen no respect. He’s rude to her, slathering her with butter and olive oil and then flinging her, breast down, legs in the air (the turkey, not my mother) into a 500-degree oven for the first twenty minutes.

His mashed potatoes are loaded with creme Fraiche, truffle salt, and a pound of butter…yet oddly enough—not a single calorie. Oh, the French.

His vegetable of choice is the brussel sprout. The recipe is so elaborate,  with shredded bacon and gruyere in a balsamic reduction; that he’s only allowed to make them every other year.

That allows us to have the green beans in mushroom soup with the dried onion rings on top for the alternating years. He would never deign to eat that slop. We, on the other hand, squeal with delight in gleeful anticipation of this mushy mess of soupy goodness while his face assumes that pinched look of French disapproval.

Maybe the worst atrocity against the holiday is the stuffing; or lack thereof. He was raised in France. They don’t know from stuffing. They have bread pudding.

This year he is repeating the mushroom and leek bread pudding that he served last Thanksgiving. It really is delicious, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not my mom’s stuffing and it doesn’t go well with gravy – if you can imagine that.

As long as we’re talking gravy. His gravy is ridiculously smooth and savory, I’ll hand him that.

No one can figure out how he does it and I still haven’t caught him in the act of making it. I’m convinced it is delivered by Trappist monks to the back door just before we sit down.

He doesn’t care much for cranberry sauce so my mom still makes hers, which is not that crap in the can. Hers has chunks of real berries, more like a chutney and…oh sorry, I drooled.

Yams and sweet potatoes are not his things either so he’s given us the okay to make my mom’s killer Sweet Potato Casserole. It is heart-stoppingly delicious. La petite mortit is THAT good.

Then there was the year he decided no pumpkin pie. Instead, he whipped up a pumpkin-ish, cheese-cakey, soufflé sort of thing—and a Tarte Tartan.

It’s been ten years, and I’m just getting over it.

His last act of hijackery is the fact that he does not deliver to the table a perfectly browned bird ready to be carved.

Nope, no Norman Rockwell moment at our house.

Instead, with knives so sharp they can slice a tomato, he carves the turkey up in the kitchen like a skilled butcher, arraigning it artistically by sections on a white platter; placing the drumsticks on the sides like exclamation points. I’ve actually come to appreciate the expediency of serving the bird this way.
White meat on the left, dark meat on the right.
Voila!

But this is a day about giving thanks and although He has hijacked this most American of meals, I must admit that we are lucky and ever so grateful to have this Frenchman in our family.

Every. Single. Year. He takes us on another culinary adventure, expanding our palates by spending weeks shopping, hours chopping and delivering to our family such a carefully thought out and meticulously prepared and delicious feast.

We love you!

Now let’s eat!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Infuse Your Life With Love

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*That is my hubs famous Thanksgiving turkey. It is a gift to our mouths every year.

We’ve all experienced it.

That special meal made from ordinary ingredients, that makes you sit back and……well let’s face it, I’ve teared up over zucchini blossoms stuffed with ricotta cheese, and a lukewarm glass of Chianti at a cafe in Tuscany.

There’s no reasonable explanation why the line of foodies forms around the block and you can’t fanagle a reservation for thirty days.
You can’t quite put your finger on why the bread is orgasmic or the pasta is to die for.

Your Grandmother, aunt Sadie or that fancy chef obviously have a secret invisible ingredient that they add all the way through the process.
Starting at chopping the garlic and ending with the perfect application of salt and pepper
With a purse of the lips, they blow a kiss, adding LOVE to everything they make.

We’ve all seen it.

Giant, shiny black, Grand Piano on stage. It is competently played by the pianist for the orchestra or band.
Then the featured performer takes to the keys and blows the roof off the joint.
Same piano, maybe even the same song, but played with such power, such passion, such….LOVE.
It may be invisible, but the difference…..is viseral.

We’ve all heard it.

The singer that steps forward for their solo and what comes out of their mouth is an aria that sends God a love note.
Their very essence transferred onto the notes of a song. Angelic tones sent from heaven and sung with LOVE.
There is no other possible explanation.

That’s what makes what you do special.

When you leave or infuse your essence, your gooey goodness, your divine deliciousness, your LOVE, into your speaking, your writing, your cooking, anything and everything you do each day,
you enhance the experience for everyone around you.

Then it will be reflected back.

It may be applause, great material success, or a simple compliment.

Even a garden can send that love back to it’s caretaker. We call it a green thumb. It’s really just LOVE reflected back.

What is that special something that carries YOUR love out into the world? Go ahead! Brag to me, I’d LOVE to hear about it!

xox

Hi, I’m Janet

Mentor. Pirate. Dropper of F-bombs.

This is where I write about my version of life. My stories. Told in my own words.

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