giving grazie

Thanksgiving is best spent at home. Preferably in your parents' completely redecorated living room that is so ben fatto (well done) that when you walk through the door you don't know where you are. It's best spent with new babies and your sister's new boyfriend, and twenty-pound turkeys that went into the oven hours before a single guest even thought of arriving.

Thanksgiving is a time for green bean casserole. And Jell-o molds. And stuffing that your cousin left at home because now they're traveling with a baby and it's hard to remember everything.

And it goes without saying that thanks are given for our families and our friends. For health, for happiness, and certainly for all managing to get together in one place at the same time.

It's also time to give thanks for all of the little things that we miss about home. Those silly simple things that haunt you when you're far away.



We're thankful for the rediscovery of garlic - a spice Italian food (in America) is known for but which lays surprisingly low in Italian cuisine, at least that of the North. But in Chicago, you can coat sweet, giant shrimp in olive oil and garlic and find yourself in a small slice of savory heaven.



We're thankful for international cuisine. Hours after landing in Chicago, despite the lingering fatigue of a ten hour flight - and the onset of the resulting jet lag - we high-tailed it to the nearest Mexican restaurant. Chips and salsa we missed you! Another night was spent at the Polish restaurant where in addition to hearty potato pancakes and sauerkraut (previously found only in Krakow), we found the second best license plate in the world: BUNS. Could there be a more perfect companion to BTTR LV which we found on a ferry in 2005? (To jog your memory check out my October 2005 blog entries.)



And no matter how hard it's raining - and how many friends you run into by chance even though you didn't tell anyone you were coming home for Thanksgiving - don't forget Thai food. It's the food that we miss most and there's a restaurant on Chicago's north side whose dishes are second only to those served in Thailand. We ordered far more than we could eat but fearlessly ate it all. We know that our next pad thai is a long time coming.



We're thankful for Chicago - the city - with its skyscrapers and shopping and lakeside parks with giant metal beans dropped into the middle of them. With the bean and its smooth curves reflecting and distorting the city so that you just stare at the reflections of the buildings shooting sharply into the sky and think, "There are none of these in Milan." And it's true. There is never that vertical tug, that energy moving up, up, up. I came out of Union Station - the main train station in downtown Chicago - and I got tears in my eyes. Who knew I missed this place so much.



We're thankful for the cold. And not "Milano" cold, but real cold. The kind that comes with snow and bites at your skin and makes you wish you brought your gloves. That cold with a screaming wind that brings snow on Thanksgiving morning and lines the tree branches with thin white stripes. And what about a deer crowned with antlers running across the front yard, grunting out its steamy breath? In Chicago, it's winter and it's cold and that's how November is supposed to feel.



We're thankful for hot dogs and American coffee and breakfast. Those simple things that are so very American. I don't even eat hot dogs and I can appreciate the joy of a Chicago style hot dog with its sloppy piles of chilis and relish and pickle slices. And American coffee in giant cups that waitresses keep filling up whether you ask them to or not. And breakfast... Oh sweet breakfast. Omelets and waffles and pancakes. Everything with butter. And then just one more cup of coffee.



This year's Thanksgiving was special for many reasons. And sitting there together on Thursday, the group of us in one room until nearly midnight, I think we all knew it.

Maybe that's part of what made it so special - the knowledge that we're all so very lucky, and the luxury to enjoy that feeling together.