I can imagine—after months of Scandinavian winter darkness—becoming very cynical about this gleeful milk packaging.

But for now, I love the pretty flowers and graphic repeats.

I also love the French show from whence this cometh: Mixeur. Click on their New York segment to see Hans Gissinger's stewed pig and that rice-pudding place that I never understood.

Ten years ago, in what seems now like another lifetime, when my friend Hans Gissinger lived in that mountain house in Woodstock, he roped me into helping him with a rather elaborate personal project: a fashion shoot referencing the 1973 Marco Ferreri film La Grande Bouffe,where Marcello Mastroianni and Phillipe Noiret plan a weekend in a villa with a group of friends for the purpose of eating themselves to death. 

He would need, among other things, an older French eccentric (easy), a couple of nubile Russian models (done), some regular folks from the village, an 80-lb. hog to roast (in his wood-burning oven), three freshly killed pheasants, just for decoration, a hunting knife made from a bull's penis, a tower of creampuffs, and a few Alexander McQueen outfits for the villagers to wear. (Done and done.)  Someone else took care of getting the stylists, groomers, equipment, props, and hotel rooms for anyone who wasn't going to camp out at the compound. One townie showed up with an apple pie she made from 22 varieties of her own apples and a granola crust right out of the '70s, accompanied by her husband who brought the biggest bag of pot I've ever seen in person.

When all was set and ready to shoot, Hans got up on the ladder, declared he "wasn't feeling it," and told everyone to  party on sans cameras. At one point, Marcel the eccentric Frenchman was spewing fireballs of vodka into the fireplace while Naila the stylist belly-danced for her then-husband, who had just come back barefoot and drunk from a hike in the woods with the two (drunk) Russian models and some "bears," which translated to "beers" with a Russian accent, so no wonder he's the ex, while the until-then vegan villagers ate pork right off the pig with their hands in a pot-induced haze and used the apple pie as an ashtray.

I mention this because it's Thanksgiving, and although I am now a respectable mother and I don't plan to eat myself to death (maybe), I do plan to get together with the Gissingers—once there was one, and now there are five—for a Grande Family Bouffe. There won't be an 80-lb. pig or any Russian Models Gone Wild, but I expect there will be some drunk villagers, a fire-breathing Frenchman, good food, and a bunch of kids run amok. And for all that, I give thanks.

Theo and Son Gissinger (we saw father Gissinger's work yesterday) with Stumptown Steve at the coffee roaster in Red Hook.