Ode to Jellified Cranberry Meat

After Martha's departure (and I mean, the day after she left), we were greeted by our good old Madison friends, the McHughs! Erin and Lili got to spend some good quality time together and we all got to have a very special Thanksgiving together. It was mostly special for me because I didn't have to cook, just kidding! Wesleyan hosted an extremely nice dinner at a restaurant just outside of Paris, where we had a very lovely

thanksgiving style dinner. For starters, we were served a pumpkin soufle with sweet corn fritters. The main course was turkey breast stuffed with fois gras (as only the french would dare to do), lazily floating on some peppered gravy. There were also smashed sweet potatoes with some kind of sesame cookie topping. Most surprising is that there was actual cranberry sauce. Glaringly absent, however, was the can molded jellified cranberry meat that is apparently only available in the good ol' US of A. In it's place were cubes of jello with an indistinguishable flavor. Presumably it was supposed to be cranberry but I think the chef actually made it from scratch (and I don't mean adding water to some colored powdery stuff) with actual fruit, sugar and gelatin... huge mistake. You can only get that intense sweet flavor by mixing sugar with fake sugar, food coloring, food flavoring and ity-bity pieces of fruit that have been dehydrated and then rehydrated, just for some texture. And it has to be made with industrial size machines, canned and sold at a 300% mark up. I won't take it any other way! But the kids gobbled it up (no pun intended...OK, I'm lying, you caught me, but it's funny, right?). It was actually the only thing Noa ate. The desserts were great... a chocolate tart with pecans, a cheesecake tart and a pumpkin tart (those frenchies just love to tart things up, don't they?). And in true american fashion we were served a slice of all three! So I guess you could say the dinner was a success but I think I'm going to do my own version for New Years with my new Ikea kitchen that is being installed tomorrow (you heard it right and don't worry, I'll keep you all posted on that fiasco)! Anyways, we had all kinds of fun with the McHughs, I think the best day was when we trekked up to Montmartre, went to Sacre Coeur and on the little choo-choo tour of the area (yes, the red light district and Moulin Rouge is in the neighborhood but that's not what I meant by choo-choo... come on, we were with the kids for crying out loud!). I've attached a few photos of the McHugh children, Erin and Brendan and there is one there of Siobain in her natural habitat... Parisian cafe (notice the 'artists entrance' signage). That's all for now... until we meet again!