Thanksgiving: Part I

Monday we celebrated Thanksgiving.

Now I can imagine what you are thinking: "Gee, I've always felt like the holidays were getting earlier and earlier every year, but Thanksgiving before Halloween is a little extreme!"

Have no fear, Thanksgiving is still safely situated at the end of November where it belongs. However, our friendly neighbors to the north believe in an earlier version of Thanksgiving and so celebrate on the day that we traditionally call "Columbus day." Since Lydia, my fellow going-to-the-Congo mate, is one of those friendly neighbors to the north, she cooked up a fabulous Thanksgiving feast for us all. Which is just fine by me because it means that I get to celebrate Thanksgiving twice this year. That's twice the food, twice the gluttony, and twice the deliciousness (although none of the football).

Having Thanksgiving in a foreign country is hard. First, there are no cranberries, sweet potatoes, or even turkey to be found round about here, so we had to make some adjustment. Lydia made a tasty chicken roast, mashed potatoes, a fabulous chestnut and apple stuffing made with chestnuts gathered from the Italian hills, and steamed vegetables. For dessert she made a pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin. Here in Italy, pumpkin pie doesn't come in cans. You actually have to get a pumpkin, cook it, mash it, and make a pie yourself.

All in all it was a fantastic feast and made me look forward even more to Thanksgiving: Part II.