Sometimes it Feels Like We Live in a SItcom

So, as you all know, we hosted a Thanksgiving feast for our Italian friends and a few American colleagues this weekend (11 people in total). In the end it was a wonderful evening full of good food, good people, and lots of laughter, but as per usual we had some interesting setbacks along the way.

Turkey (or tacchino) is of course the traditional Thanksgiving meat prepared by countless American families every year. It is possible to get turkey here, simply by ordering it from the butcher, but we prefer prime rib, and that has become our little tradition passed down from Mom and Pops Brezina. So Charles very carefully researched what prime rib would be called in Italian, and we placed an order for a large piece of meat at our usual butcher a week in advance. He seemed to understand what we wanted and that it would be ready for us next Saturday. Come Saturday morning we were feeling good about all of our preparations as we headed to the market for some last minute items and to pick up our meat.

When we arrived at the butcher shop he greeted us in the usual fashion, and when Charles asked for the costata di manzo it was clear that he had forgotten. After trying to pacify us with inferior cuts of meat he finally offered to try and get what we needed by 4 o'clock and told us to call him at that time to see if he was able to get it. Of course this was unacceptable. 4 o'clock would be too late, and what if he wasn't able to get it after all?

Dante suggested we go to another butcher in the next town over, and he kindly drove us there. When we arrived Dante began talking to the man and explaining what we were looking for. As it turns out, this particular butcher actually slaughters his own meat (which is very unusual) and they had a side of a cow uncut hanging in the fridge. Charles accompanied the man into the locker and showed him exactly how he wanted the meat cut. Very authentic. Our piece of meat ended up being just over 11 kilos (a kilo is 2.2lbs) including bones, and because of the large order he also gave us a discount in price. Charles got to play butcher and carve up 22 pounds of meat into a delicious prime rib loin amongst other things. As you can imagine we have alot of steak in our freezer right now. So, things were back on track, our delicous meat was fresh and ready to be cooked, and all we had to do was to get the sides ready.

Since I was in charge of making dessert I spent most of the day preparing two pumpkin pies and one apple pie. I made each pie from scratch (prepared pie crust does not exist here), and I was pleased with how well they turned out, having never made pie before. One of my pumpkin pies was still a bit warm, and so I left it on a patio table outside of the clubhouse to cool while we were setting up for dinner.

As I was walking from the cottage to the clubhouse with wine and bread for the table I was startled by a rustling in the bushes as one of the villa's cats scurried away from the sound of my footsteps. As I approached the door to the clubhouse I looked down at m pie and saw that half of it had been eaten by the damn cat!! I couldn't help but laugh, and think that it was a good thing I had made two pumpkin pies. Dante found it hilarious and said that it must be good pie if the gato liked it.

Dinner was pretty good overall, it was funny to watch the Italians as they tried new things. The stuffing, the green jell-o, sweet potato pudding and the pumpkin pie were all very confusing to them. They couldn't figure out why the jell-o was green, they thought for sure it was pistachio, then we finally explained that it was "colore artificiale" and they all went "aah". They seemed to like that one. The sweet potato pudding was also tough to explain, they do have sweet potatoes here but it seems like no one knows what to do with them. This combined with the marshmallows (there is no translation) was even funnier but they also seemed to like it. As for the pumpkin pie, they love pumpkin but they don't eat it as dessert, and especially not from a can! However, again, they liked it and they liked it even more with homemade whipped cream on top!

And so our first holiday abroad was a success and a lot of fun to make happen.