And, yes, I am stressing. I have 32 French coming for American Thanksgiving on Thursday followed up by 12 American, Irish, French and who knows what else for Thanksgiving Week end. Tom is ordered, I pick the first one up on Wednesday 9kg then the 2nd, 6kg on Friday.
Why do I stress? I only started cooking when I arrived here in France in 1988. Before, I lived in New York City and like millions of others, we didn't make dinner, we made restaurant reservations! When I was starting my book store in Paris someone said why don't I do a Tea Room at the same time. Tea & Tattered Pages was born and so was a cook, me. I was 35 at the time and took on learning French and Cooking at the same time. At least, according to others, the cooking was a success.
Back to T Day. Almost all my Thanksgiving recipes come from a November 1998 Bon Appetit. They give a choice of traditional and new and different recipes. I tend to mix the two. I like classic turkey
and stuffing but I do a chili cornbread and I put mustard and tyme in my cranberry sauce.
Today I made the chili cornbread muffins. I have a tendancy to change a recipe as I see fit. For example in this recipe I subsitute smoked paprika (yes I bring it back from the States) for the chili. Here is the Bon Appetit recipe.
Make 12 large or 24 small muffins.
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup canned corn kernels
4 tsp chili (this is where I subistute smoked paprika)
1 cup buttermilk (I use normal milk and add a tsp of lemon juice)
2 large eggs
1 cup cornmeal (I use polenta)
1 cup flour
3 tbs sugar
2 tsp baking powder (levure chimique)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
Preheat oven 400°F , 200° C or 8 gas mark. Sift dry ingredients in a large bowl. Melt butter in a saucepan, add corn and chili powder. Sauté 3 minutes. Transfer to medium bowl, add milk, and eggs, let cool. Add to sifted ingredients and mix just until blended. Divide among muffin cups. Bake 20 minutes for normal sized muffins, 15 minutes for small or until a tester comes out clean. Can be frozen up to 2 weeks before hand.
The French, at least those who come for Thanksgiving love them.
I have also started the decorations.
Tomorrow Isabelle and I will set up the tables.
And tonight I think I will treat myself to an extra glass of wine and let the stress.........
Here I am trying to explain what Thanksgiving is all about. My Thursday night Thanksgiving for the French locals came about when I was organising my Thanksgiving week end for Americans living in France. Many of my French friends demanded to know what exactly was Thanksgiving. They all knew the word but not the feast. So I decided to do a Thanksgiving for them. 
