I am a lucky person to have shared our American Thanksgiving, and my first one in Italy with my good American friends Susan and Gary and their guests from California and six of our Italian friends and two Italian children. It was an amazing feast! It has been documented in pictures below.

Alas, I was still cooking in the borrowed apartment as we are not quite ready to move into our place yet. My contribution to the meal was dinner rolls, green beans, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. The cranberries had crossed the ocean with Gina and Mark. I also decided to roast the little Cannara onions in balsamic vinegar, stock and herbs to share. I had to send Luther on an errand to buy a mixer and it was pouring rain. He manned up and walked to Formica and therefore made his contribution to the mashed potatoes.

We gathered at Susan’s and Gary’s apartment at about 12:30. Gary, Gina and Mark had gone up into the Niccone valley to Calagrana to pick up the turkey. Since none of us have a big oven Susan had arranged with the restaurant to obtain and cook our turkey. I might add it was the largest turkey any of us had EVER seen. 15 kilos or about 35 pounds! Eli, restaurant owner and British, had started the turkey at midnight and collaborated with her sister in Philadelphia on Skype. The turkey roasted for 12 hours. She also made some wonderful appetizers, a pork roast in case there wasn’t enough food (!) and a pie. She sent along the drippings for us to make gravy.

Susan’s beautiful table!!

We started the preparations and Simone, Simona and Fabio arrived with contributions of their own. Simona and Simone are Milanese transplants who live off the grid on a farm south of Umbertide. Fabio is a technical guy and also creates olive wood utensils, lamps, etc. Fabio was the most excited of everyone. He had seen our Thanksgiving on TV and this was his first actual one. Most of the pictures below are from him.

Antoinetta, Barbara, Emanuele and their boys arrived last. We had a prosecco toast and dug into the appetizers. Here are some pictures.

Next we dished up the Meal. Here is the ENORMOUS turkey which had the boys in total awe!

And the buffet with all of the dishes. I demonstrated to the Italians how to load up their plates and I was pleased to see they did so with enthusiasm.

Fabio’s plate and the table.

Onions.

Gravy.

Beans.

Mark stepped up to carve the bird.

And finally we all sat down to the feast. We gave a toast to our friendship and our ability to share a wonderful, international meal.

Luther had helped with the wine selections along with Gary and Mark. Susan had made a pumpkin pie. There were two other pies we were too stuffed to eat.