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
Hi Loves,
A few of you asked me to re-post the Thanksgiving essay from last year. I hope it helps ya’ll to keep it together!
I also wanted to add how extremely thankful I am for all of YOU and your big, open, hearts.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!
xoxJ
Thanksgiving in the U.S. can be brutal because of all the Norman Rockwellian expectations. Unfortunately, what we imagine as warm and fuzzy, can quickly turn cold and prickly.
Even though everyone at the table is somehow related, dinner etiquette can morph
into a kind of blood sport. Back handed compliments and thinly veiled sarcasm abound, and it’s just not Thanksgiving unless someone ends up in tears.
Add a tons of carbohydrates, lots of judgement, a dash of shame, with a pumpkin pie chaser and voila – Hilarity ensues!
NOT.
When you put together people that only find themselves sitting in the same room once a year, there isn’t enough alcohol on the planet to keep you in “that loving place”.
It can turn into a real numb-fest.
The carbs numb you down,
The booze,
The sugar,
The football,
The sour cream onion dip,
Yes, you heard me. It all numbs you down, so you can smile and remain polite, making sure that everyone lives to see another holiday.
But let’s all try to remember, shall we, that everyone has the highest of intentions when they pull up the driveway.
And each year can be a fresh start.
When you make forgiveness the first course, it helps you remember that everyone is just doing the best they can and it makes the rest of the day play out differently.
My family is loving, relatively sane, and really quite civil – now.
I think that’s because we’re all so damn old.
The last time we served crazy for Thanksgiving was during the Reagan
Administration.
Gone are the comments lobbed across the table by uncle Bob, that are meant to be funny – but aren’t – followed by that uncomfortable silence.
So…let’s all practice forgiveness, humor, acceptance and gratitude; choosing to operate from the heart, remembering the true intention of this day.
Take a deep breath, put on your best holiday smile, and listen with love, as your well intentioned aunt gives you her unsolicited opinion on how much she dislikes your new haircut.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Xox
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.
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 mort— it is THAT good.
It’s been ten years, and I’m just getting over it.
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!
Racing around today, attempting to get things set up for Thanksgiving, I had to stop and remind myself what this day is all about.
It is not about finding seven matching dining chairs – it is about gratitude.
Gratitude for the blessings we have already received – and the ones that are on their way.
So I just jotted down the first three that came to mind:
Turkey basters – For the obvious, once a year reason; and also for their myriad of other uses including: getting the leftover water out of the Christmas Tree stand before you drag it across the room and out the door to the curb. ( Which BTW is one of the saddest days of my entire year, it makes me tear up just thinking about it)
Candles with wooden wicks – LOVE. I’m so sick of burning my fingers, fishing a traditional wick out of hot wax. Many a perfectly good candle has been thrown (out) due to wick drowning. And along those lines, drip-less tapered candles. SO GRATEFUL. If you’ve ever had to use a hot iron to get the wax out of your tablecloth, then you know what I mean.
Tweezers – For my migrating chin hair. Hey, maybe you guys know – Does Makita make tweezers? The hair on my chin/jaw/nose now has the gauge and strength of copper wire.
Okay, so I went first, now YOU go!
Give me three things you’re grateful for.
Come on! You can think of three.
Leave them in the comments below.
PS. Don’t be shy, nobody looks at the comments but me.
Don’t let this kid “one up” you!
Xox
I’m beginning to realize that all these posts on forgiveness are going to come in handy for the upcoming holidays and their familial entanglements.
Thanksgiving in the US can be brutal because of all the Norman Rockwellian
expectations.
Unfortunately, what we imagine as warm and fuzzy, can quickly turn cold and prickly.
Even though everyone at the table is somehow related, dinner etiquette can morph
into a kind of blood sport.
Back handed compliments and thinly veiled sarcasm abound, and it’s just not Thanksgiving, if somebody doesn’t cry.
Put tons of carbohydrates, lots of judgement, a dash of shame, with a pumpkin pie chaser and voila!
Hilarity ensues!
NOT!
When you put together people that only sit in the same room once a year, there isn’t enough alcohol on the planet to keep you in “that loving place”.
It can turn into a real numb-fest.
The carbs numb you down,
The booze,
The sugar,
The football,
The sour cream onion dip,
Yes, you heard me!
It all numbs you down, so you can smile and remain polite,
making sure that everyone lives to see another holiday.
But let’s all remember that everyone has the highest of intentions
when they pull up the driveway.
And each year can be a fresh start.
When you make forgiveness the first course,
knowing that everyone is just doing the best they can,
it makes the rest of the day play out differently.
My family is loving, relatively sane, and really quite civil now.
I think that’s because we’re all so damn old!
The last time we served crazy for Thanksgiving was during the Reagan
administration.
Gone are the comments that are meant to be funny…but aren’t,
followed by that uncomfortable silence.
Still…let’s all practice forgiveness,
try to operate from the heart, remembering the true intention of this day.
Take a deep breath,
And listen with love as our well intentioned aunt tells us how much she dislikes our new haircut.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Xox Janet
