Post #19: Happy Thanksgiving from Italy

I have not cooked a Thanksgiving dinner in a quarter of a century. Yet, here I am, in a country that doesn’t even celebrate the holiday, getting ready to do just that. I have a wedding registry’s worth of brand new serveware and cooking utensils for the occasion. A Calphalon roasting pan, a set of 12 Fiestaware place settings, and several polish pottery serving dishes. I’ve got table full of Thanksgiving dinner appropriate adornments right down to the ever-so-important gravy boat. The problem is, all of those goodies are boxed up in storage 4,000 miles away. So, what do I have to prepare my very first Thanksgiving feast? A random collection of pots without lids, a 13 by 9 baking pan, and an oven that’s practically the size of those easy bake ones that were the Christmas craze when I was a little girl. 

Despite the fact that I am inexperienced and ill-equipped, I am excited for the holiday feast. Afterall, the celebration is about your haves and not your have-nots… Though I don’t have the knowledge of how to cook a turkey, I do have the help of two other wives whose expertise in that arena far surpasses my own. While Butterball turkeys are not overflowing the refrigerator section of Italy’s grocery stores, I do have a duo of butcher-shop friends that are hooking me up with a fresh bird… puliti and senza la testa, thank you very much. Even though we don’t have cranberries, I do have an interesting recipe for a raspberry-based alternative. And though I won’t have the company of my family, I will share the table with my husband and twelve new friends.

Tomorrow, I will certainly be thinking about the yearly Norwood feast with the Patsos family pickers who have been known to leave un-cut cakes unfrosted and Papa’s salads de-cucumbered all before the saran wrap as been removed. I will miss the Cape Cod edition of the holiday where it’s clear that you can take the Regan’s out of South Boston, but you can’t take Joseph’s pies off of the dessert menu. I will think fondly of Thanksgiving Day’s past, but I will look forward to the memories from my first Italian Turkey Day. As I sit down on Sunday to eat the belated but delicious meal that I will somehow miraculously prepare, I will be grateful for my loved ones back home who have given me so much to be grateful for. Who have, therefore, made this holiday into one that is important enough to carry overseas.

Happy thanksgiving!

Theresa and Stephanie, you can obviously have the wishbone this year…