Tacchino, per favore?

 So for those who have not seen all my bragging on my Facebook page, here I can gloat again about my fantastic attempt at making a Thanksgiving meal in Italy, with only 4 days to organize, prepare, and cook it all!  At first, I thought of inviting maybe 4 to 6 of our closest friends to the little get-together.  I nice sit-down dinner for 6 to 8 people seemed manageable, considering this would be a first attempt, and who knows what ingredients I would be able to find.  But of course, when in this country, nothing can be small, quiet, and simple.  So before I knew it, we had at least 9 people to invite, with 2 others on the waiting list!  First, I thought of the "table-scape", as Sandra Lee calls it, because at least if the food didn't taste good, we could all be sitting around a lovely table with some good wine and conversation!  I found a great little craft from the Family Fun magazine online and made Indian head dresses and Pilgrim hats as napkin rings to add a little bit of whimsy to the table.  Thankfully I had been saving old cereal boxes, knowing at some point I would use them for something!  Ava helped by coloring some cardboard for the feathers and giving me encouragement by saying "ooooh, ahhh...good job, mommy" while I made 10 total!  They also had some great little print outs for place settings, and some Thanksgiving themed leaves, pumpkins, etc that I placed on the table to make sure everyone knew it was Thanksgiving!

I found some good, simple recipes online, and made sure that the ingredients included would be easily accessible here in Italy.  Or that I could at least find something similar in the markets here.  Most of the morning on Tuesday and Wednesday I was in the supermarket, searching for just the right ingredients.  One good thing about making a Thanksgiving meal here in Italy, is that there isn't all the crazy-mad-pre-Thanksgiving rush that you get in the States.  By Wednesday we decided to go on the "turkey hunt" and if we found one, we'd try to cook a real, honest-to-goodness American turkey.  If we couldn't find one, we would buy a little turkey roll to serve as the "honorary turkey" and then make some roast beef, etc.  Well, after searching several machellerias in the area, we figured we would only find a turkey at the Mercato Centrale...the main, big, fresh food market of Firenze.  But passing by our neighborhood mercatino (a small open air market in a little square near the house), we stopped to ask a butcher if he could give us any leads on a place selling whole turkeys.  He promptly replied that he had one!  In fact, believe it or not, "some American woman ordered 2 turkeys, picked one up yesterday, and will pick up the other one on Thursday...you can have her extra one today, and we'll order another one for that lady for tomorrow!"  I couldn't believe our luck.  What made it even more unbelievable was that it was the perfect, 15lb (almost 8kg) turkey we needed to serve about 10 people!  Coming from a girl who doesn't handle raw poulty except to put a boneless, skinless chickenbreast in the pan, I surprised myself when I found I was admiring and loving that huge turkey with more pride and excitement than I have ever felt for a piece of food!  I literally was beaming as they chopped off the ends of the legs and part of the wings so the big bird could fit in our tiny oven!

With the turkey found, we went on to find sweet potatoes (patate americana, I think they are called here) at Mercato Centrale for a ridiculous price, and I even found some cranberry preserves (mirtilli rossi) at the Esselunga near the jelly section!  So, after much planning, organizing, and preparing, I set to work cooking my first big meal!  Wednesday night I made the stuffing (completely from scratch!), the artichoke dip appetizer, and chopped all the veggies I would be using the next day.  Thursday afternoon I picked up my pie and was so grateful that all the stores were open on Thanksgiving for those last minute purchases I needed to make.  I promptly prepared my beautiful turkey and had it in the oven at 4:30pm.  Ava eventually went down for a nap around that time because I knew we would be up late with our friends, since dinner was scheduled for 8:30pm.  In a mad rush we were able to borrow a lovely tablecloth from our neighbor, and I finished setting the table.  At 7pm I started the side dishes of fresh greenbeans with onions, sweet potato cubes with honey, reheated the stuffing, and kept an eye on my turkey!  Our friends began arriving at 8:00, the turkey was browned and ready to sit at 8:30 and we enjoyed snacks and drinks until pictures were taken of my pride and joy, as well as all our other guests at the table!

 

So, amazingly with the help of our neighbor's oven, all my careful planning with timing, and my close attention to the recipes I was following, the dinner was ready for us to eat!  I loved how American my table looked, with my familiar foods and silly historical refrences to the first Thanksgiving...yet it was still Italian, too.  There were at least 4 bottles of wine on the table.  There was a beautiful mixture of Italian and English being spoken around the table.  And a friend of mine asked as we were ready to dig in, "What do you eat first?" since in Italy there always seems to be a "first" and "second" to a meal...and I just replied "You just eat it all!" like a typical American.  I sat with anticipation to see if people were actually eating the food I prepared.  I tasted everything on my plate quickly to make sure all the dishes were somewhat edible.  The carved turkey arrived, and everyone was so excited to use the "Alaskan Smoked Salt" that my mother had sent to me.

Well, at this point I'm not sure if my friends were just being kind, but they all said it was good eating. Some even went as far to say I'm a natural cook, since this was my first dinner I ever really prepared all by myself!  I think several had tasted other versions of Thanksgiving meals in their past, but said my interpretation was rather good!  Regardless of all the work I did, the saving grace to the evening was the moist turkey, the pre-bought pumpkin pie that was perfection, and the wonderful company who have made me so thankful to be here in Italy!