Thurs, Nov. 27 - Happy Thanksgiving!!

A restful night. Lloyd was up early and was almost the first in line for the morning's fresh baguette at the boulangerie.  Unfortunately when he returned to our apartment building, the inner door decided to take a short holiday. Even calling up to the apartment so that I could "buzz" him in didn't work. In fact, after I went down to the lobby, we discovered that I couldn't exit the building. It was only shortly after 7am and too early to disturb the apartment caretaker. Magically after about 10-15 minutes of Lloyd and I looking at each other through the glass door, the connection worked and Lloyd was able to enter. It remains a mystery.

The day started out cloudy, but the fog seems to be gone. Our only plans for today were to be "hunter/gatherers" for our Thanksgiving dinner. That included visiting a different market that is just south of us.

So many choices of fresh vegetables--we bought beautiful green beans, (haricot vertes), arugula, (roquette), and baby radishes. Then we hoofed it over to Rue Cler where we bought some tiny roasted potatoes. Along the way Lloyd spotted a Berthillon ice cream shop. Monsieur Berthillon, who recently passed away in August, started the business in 1928 and it is still operated by his descendants. We thought we'd buy 1/2 liter (approx. the size of a pint) of some of this popular ice cream. When the saleswoman told us the price was 13 euros--almost $16-- we almost fell over. It turned out this was probably the most expensive part of our dinner. But what the heck, the wine is cheap and we figure we drink a lot more wine than we eat ice cream, so we are way ahead on the balance sheet! Besides, it's Thanksgiving, so who's counting.

After several more trips to the local grocery store for incidentals, it was finally time to break into the champagne and start preparing our dinner. Lloyd was up to the task:

He jumped in with his large carving knife and what a delightful feast we had: roast chicken, potatoes, haricot vertes, arugula salad with lentil and pomegranate garnish, the obligatory fresh baguette and French wine.

No turkey/no pumpkin pie, but the chicken and vanilla ice cream with hot apples were a reasonable substitute. Good food/good company...certainly a memorable holiday!