We interrupt our late summer travel posts to bring you one in real time – Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
This year we will be celebrating our fourth Thanksgiving holiday in Europe and I can hardly believe it! I love to look back on where we were for each Thanksgiving, and who we were with.
In our first year we were parked up in the Algarve in Portugal. Though we were alone on the actual day, the following day we met up with Nancy Patterson and Chris Berry, whose company we enjoyed immensely. Chris was taking a break from circumnavigating the globe in his sailboat “Spill The Wine” to spend some time with his wife Nancy. We shared a few meals with them over the next few days before they took off to Morocco and we headed to the ranch for Christmas. Great folks, hope we can meet up again!
In year two, the year of Covid, we celebrated with friends in Croatia while we were staying in a little cabin along the coast on the Istria Peninsula. Brad and Oksana were in a cabin near us, while our Irish friends Mark and Ingrid stayed in a different, nearby campground. The six of us pulled together an amazing and delicious meal and it was warm enough that we ate outside on our deck!
Last year we were in Rome, but I cannot for the life of me recall anything about our Thanksgiving meal. When I draw a blank like this I usually turn to the photos on my phone to jog my memory, but the only photo I have on that date is one of Steven in the kitchen. I asked him if he had any memories of our TG in Rome and he does not! I finally checked to see if I posted on Facebook and I did! Turns out we had the same menu we are having this year, except for dessert, which has turned into a massive experiment. More on that later!
This year we are in Paris and when it comes to food there is no better place to be. I thought I’d take you through our Thanksgiving meal, the shopping and prep, to give you an idea of what our American holidays are like in a foreign country!
Our menu over the past four Thanksgiving holidays has pretty much been the same with regard to the two main dishes. We either make grilled tenderloin or grilled Rack of Lamb and Ina Garten’s Herb & Apple Bread Pudding. As much as I love, love, love my momma’s cornbread dressing, we save that for Christmas and choose Ina’s, which goes really well with lamb and we had it again this year.
Years and years ago, in another lifetime when I worked in public relations, I helped introduce New Zealand lamb into the United States as a consumer product. I worked with a lot of high end chefs and we used to put on events featuring the lamb and whatever else we were promoting at the time. (Once my friend Dana and I left some racks of lamb in the back of my car and wow, I can’t even tell you how horrible rancid lamb smells.) Thankfully that nasty episode didn’t put me off the dish, and I continue to love it to this day.
Most racks come from your butcher (or Costco) ready for cooking, having been “frenched”, which means the bones have been exposed and cleaned. Last week Steven and I went to the neighborhood butcher to inquire about purchasing a couple of racks of lamb, but he didn’t speak English and our French isn’t anywhere near good enough to discuss the finer points of butchering meats. Steven showed him a picture of what we wanted and he replied, “Ahh, oui! Oui!” This is nearly always a good sign. Then he asked, “Two kilos? Three?” and I said, “Sure!” We agreed to pick up the order on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, which to the butcher meant nothing but next Tuesday. He doesn’t know Thanksgiving from a hole in the wall.
Later I was thinking about the lamb and slowly realized that two to three kilos is a hell of a lot of meat. I mean, it’s 4.4 to 6.6 lbs! It finally dawned on me that the racks would have to be prepared for the grill and I would have to do that myself. When I picked up the meat at the butcher, I got 1.6 kilos, or just over 3.5 lbs. It cost about $28. Yep, definitely not frenched or prepared for the grill. Ugh. I watched several YouTube videos and went to work on the racks. I can’t say they are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, but I got the job done.
The racks were marinated overnight in a paste mixture of garlic, rosemary, olive oil, Dijon mustard and parsley. Then they were taken out of the fridge and brought to room temperature, then the exposed bones were covered with foil and turned over to Steven to grill. Our preference is a nice char and a medium rare center. Yum.
I think we have made Ina’s Herb & Apple Bread Pudding every holiday since we’ve been in Europe. The two main ingredients are bread and Gruyere cheese, and believe me when I say, those two items can make or break this dish! In Rome last year, Gruyere was nowhere to be found. Asking around on all my online cooking groups didn’t help much, the responses mostly centered around “just get any type of melty cheese”. This is not helpful because in my opinion Gruyere cannot be replaced with just anything “melty”. It has been my favorite cheese for most of my life. As a student living in Switzerland, after classes we would hike up the hill to a bar where we would indulge in an afternoon snack of Gruyere cheese served with thick slices of rustic bread, a dollop of mustard and a liter of Feldschlösschen beer. That is one of the all time greatest after school snacks, in my opinion. So in my mind there really is no substitution for Gruyere. As a result, our bread pudding in Rome was not memorable. I don’t even remember what cheese I used. Something melty, I guess.
This year it was outstanding. Not only did we have the most delicious French Gruyere cheese (supplied by our new best friend Mike, the neighborhood cheese monger) but we also had a beautiful French Country loaf that was the most gorgeous loaf of bread ever, with a taste to match. The cheese cost more than the lamb but the bread was cheap as chips! I guess it evens out in the end!
New on our plate this year was Ina’s Green Beans Gremolata, blanched beans finished with a paste of garlic, lemon zest, sliced almonds, and Parmesan cheese. I couldn’t wait to try this one, it may become a staple, who knows! Ina actually uses pine nuts, but, meh.
And finally, dessert, which has somehow taken on a life of its own. This year, we made Magnolia Bakery’s Famous Banana Pudding! Preparation for everything else took a backseat to what we went through to make this dessert. This wasn’t a last-minute addition to our menu, I have been thinking about this one since last December at the ranch, because there are a couple of key ingredients we can’t find over here and I had to bring back with me. Well, I brought one of them, Jell-O Instant Vanilla Pudding, the other I didn’t bother because I figured I could easily find a replacement. And believe me when I say there are plenty of options, but which one is best? Which French cookie can stand in for the Nilla Wafers in Magnolia Bakery’s Famous Banana Pudding? We were about to find out!
The first thing I did was put the question to one of my online cooking groups and their answers did not disappoint. In fact, there were so many suggestions made that we found it difficult to make a decision! We figured maybe something would jump out at us at the grocery store and that it would be obvious, but it was not. So we bought five packages of cookies, returned home, cleared our calendar, made a cup of tea and had a cookie tasting.
My gosh, they were so delicious, each and every one! At first we thought Biscoff would win, but no! Surely the Madeleines, with their Nilla Wafer-like cakey goodness would stand out from the crowd? Mai, non! This is such a hard decision!! Too hard, in fact, so we decided not to make a decision at all. Instead, we made ALL OF THEM! That’s right. We made four versions of Magnolia Bakery’s Famous Banana Pudding using four different varieties of cookies. Not a Nilla Wafer in sight!
As it turns out, Elle & Vire have a cream product with mascarpone already added! How perfect is that? Thing is, it is extortionately expensive. One liter of 30% cream is $4.50. A liter of cream with mascarpone is $7.50. Eeek. So I did a little cheat and used about half of each. I was a bit concerned that the mascarpone would change the flavor, but OMG, it was gloriously delicious!
For our tasting of the desserts, we simply took off the lids and dug in! We agreed, hands-down, that Biscoff was the winner! So there you have it.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Happy Thanksgiving!
We are currently in France near Geneva, and we are amazed at the selection of food at a nearby large Carrefour store. Never seen so many different types of cheeses. And the wine aisle is amazing!
You are at the best place ever to get some really delicious Gruyere, it actually originates from Switzerland! I love that area, my sister went to school in Versoix, a suburb of Geneva. Enjoy, and safe travels!
Covid Thanksgiving for us this year. Odel finally tested negative today, I’m a few days behind. A thanksgiving to be forgotten. I LOVED, 🥰 reading your account. Beautiful meal! Does it surprise you how much you can do in your small space?
Oh, no! I am so sorry that Covid finally got to you both. It feels like such an invasion, doesn’t it? When I tested positive I was kind of pissed off. LOL, I guess those of us who are holdouts are finally being taken down! Grrr! Yes, I am surprised at what I can do in my teeny tiny kitchen! I honestly thought Scoopy’s kitchen was so small, but I got used to it. I guess that helped. Plus, we are very organized and Steven did the dishes FIVE times today BEFORE dinner! 🙂 Hope you feel better soon!
Happy Thanksgiving! What a gorgeous feast! Inspired to try some of the recipes you posted. Love to all. xoxo
So good to hear from you, Heidi! I hope you are all doing well and together for the holidays. Of all the recipes, I recommend the green beans, they were absolutely amazing.
OMG everything looks so awesome; if there was room,I would fly over & try to have you both adopt me,lol.Continue your terrific travels & just enjoy Thanksgiving- thanks for sharing.
We may not have room for you but we have no shortage of food! We have enough for everyone! 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving to you both! The food looks delicious!
We had enough for ourselves and everyone else in the campground, but hey, we are fans of leftovers! Still choking down that ‘Nana Pud! I hope you are feeling better these days!
OMG everything looks soooo yummy!! We’re having the traditional meal with nothing fancy…the only fancy thing I did is add cranberries and green apple (diced) to the dressing. I did bake yeast rolls…light and fluffy. One day I’ll try adding green chili to the dressing since we live in SW. Hooray for Steven on his new grill lol and washing dishes as he promised hahaha.
He DID promise to do dishes, didn’t he? Years ago when we first moved into Scoopy and I wanted to install a dishwasher! LOL, he has kept his promise and I don’t think I have washed a single load of dishes in about a decade. But, I have cooked some wonderful meals! So it’s a good trade-off! Hope you enjoyed your traditional meal, and in my book, yeast rolls ARE fancy! 🙂
Happy thanksgiving to you both 💗💙
Thank you, Sue! Hope you are enjoying your travels in the Southwest!
OK. I know this is gonna sound a little weird because we don’t really know one another all that well, but… can I come live with you?
I mean, you basically had me at “eggs, cream, and gruyere cheese”, but then you added the large bowl of heavy cream and mascarpone that, if I’m being honest, I’d kinda like to swim around in for an hour or two, and THEN you add an entire COMPETITION between cookies for banana pudding?? What???? Who even does that??
Like.. seriously. I don’t take up that much space and I can be super helpful around the house. Please take me in.
I said the exact same thing to Steven, “Who even does this??” Doesn’t that bowl of cream look so luscious? That’s the kind of stuff people put in Instagram and I am just mesmerized by it. Damn, I should have made a video!
We are mulling over taking you in. Steven wants to know if you do dishes? And would Thor be part of the package deal? The Devil is in the details!
Happy Thanksgiving. I thought for sure that the walkers shortbread cookies would have won. They a wonderful.
Me, too! I mean they tied for first in the cookies tasting! Who knew those Biscoff would swoop in a fill the whole dish with so much flavor we had to crown them WINNER! 🙂 Happy Holidays, Vern!
Can’t believe it was 2 years ago we where with you in Croatia. Beautiful dinner you made us and a fantastic day with a great bunch if people. Here’s to many more Thanksgivings and hopefully we will catch one together in the future again. Happy Thanksgiving to you both!!!
Thank you, Ingrid! It would be so lovely to share another Thanksgiving holiday with you and Mark. Or any holiday, really. We will look forward to the next time we see you!
Happy Thanksgiving! I love a great head-to-head brand taste competition! Your meal sounds wonderful!!!
Thanks, I hope you guys had a wonderful day with delicious food! Our meal was really scrummy, and here we are on day three still choking down that pud. haha, not really, it is actually still delicious!
Looks like you had a great Thanksgiving! We too decorate for Christmas the day after, we are going to have a busy day!
Oh, I do miss having a home to decorate! I was the deco queen when we lived in a sticks and bricks! I didn’t just decorate for Christmas, I decorated for every occasion! I was known for my tablescapes! Alas, all my lovelies were sold off in the estate sale. I guess the trade-off was worth it, but I do miss those things and the space to put them out for all to see. Maybe one day we will have another place. Maybe. 🙂 Happy Holidays to you both!
Hello you two crazy travellers. Sorry to have been out of touch…we’re in the final week of packing up and preparing to leave Tuscany. I remember, fondly, our lunch in Siena when you, Steven, asked me what
our Plan B was and encouraged me to make one before it was too late. Thank you for that advice which
we followed. And on we go to Plan B, which actually we prefer to think of as merely the next adventure
in this crazy journey we call life. Best wishes to you both…and hopefully the cream bonanza went down
well!
Oh, Maggie! I’ve just read your post this morning about the packing up all those Tuscan memories! A Plan B is always a good idea, but it sure can be an emotional one. I remember one year on Thanksgiving Day Steven and I packed up a house we were living in to move into the new home we built, the kids were off visiting family and it was just us packing up all the crap we had. So. Much. Stuff. It was dark and raining, we were being very harsh with each other and both of us were generally being miserable. Then, unexpectedly, our neighbor showed up with two lovely and warm plates overflowing with all the traditional Thanksgiving foods. I’m sure we both looked quite pathetic, but we were so grateful. I’d like to say that gesture changed our moods but it didn’t. We still look back at the day as one of our worse, but we got passed it. You will, too! Best of luck with the move and we’ll be following along!
Happy thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. Here is Seattle we will decorate for Xmas. This will be interesting, as we start our retirement travels the first week of January. So don’t know where we will be future TDays and XMAS. Starting out with 2 months in Belize and then 3 months in portugal and spain, then back to Seattle, as we love our home. Some of your comments (don’t remember where we were last TDay…) made me realize that I need to decide on a way to document our days even if it’s not a full blog, which seems daunting to me. Love your writing and photos. Kathy
Oh how I miss the holidays in Seattle, or rather Sammamish! Yes, you should document your travels because you will be surprised how quickly you forget! If you don’t want to write blog posts, you could try using Polar Steps. I know lots of people who like it. Also, if you just want to keep a few photos and jot down a few memories, consider writing a Facebook post and then just keep it private if you don’t want to share. That way your memories come up every year! Save and happy travels!
Your fireplace. 😂😂 Your Thanksgiving looked outstanding, and your account of creating it was so much fun to read. Seriously, four versions of banana pudding? In your teeny kitchen? We cook a lot, and we’ve always cooked the same way in our RV as we do in a ‘real’ kitchen. But you guys win the prize! I love Ina Garten’s recipes, too…I must make those green beans.
So glad you guys had such a fun and delicious celebration. Cheers to many more! And thanks for continuing to share with us. OX
You know, that fireplace is surprisingly cozy! I guess this Thanksgiving found you packing up? I was surprised to read you are planning to downsize your trailer, I hope you find one with a decent kitchen! But I’m sure you will work it out one way or the other. Half my pots and pans are sitting in the floor at any given moment during meal prep, or maybe even outside! 🙂 Happy Holidays!