a milano thanksgiving

It happened over dinner at our friends' house last month. They were asking us about Thanksgiving - they're Italian - and we were gushing about how it's just like you see in the movies. A giant turkey. Pumpkin pie. All the family around. And that's when we decided we had to have a "finta" Thanksgiving, a fake Thanksgiving, to show them what it's like.

We were lucky that we had the chance to do some American shopping on our trip home for Thanksgiving. On the return flight to Milan we must have dragged back an entire suitcase devoted to Thanksgiving mandatories: a can of jellied cranberries, two boxes of Stove Top, Durkee onions, jars of gravy, canned pumpkin... There's nothing like a suitcase full of food unavailable in Italy to remind you that Thanksgiving only happens in America.

The turkey, however, wasn't something we could bring back from the States. And so Stefano had to find one here.

You can find truffles and panettone and Parmagiano Reggiano and a million kinds of wine, but Italy is not the place you want to be when it's time to find a turkey. Why? Because they don't come easy and they don't come cheap.

Stefano special-ordered a fresh turkey from the butcher (there's no such thing as Butterball here) and when we picked it up at the butcher shop the guy basically held it up by one leg, random feathers fluttering onto the counter, and asked if it was ok. It was heavier than we'd ordered and at 7.90 euro/kilo that makes a difference. But it was also the only one they had. Which meant that it was fine.



As we walked home with this giant, soft bird body it looked like Stefano was carrying around a swaddled child. At 14 pounds it was a respectable Thanksgiving turkey by American standards. But apparently, by Italian standards, a 14-lb-anything is gigantic. So large and hulking, in fact, that there was no hope of fitting it in our oven.

So on the day of fake Thanksgiving, Stefano spent a fair amount of time shuttling between the kitchen of our friend (and neighbor) with her gloriously gigantic American oven and our apartment with its petite Easy Bake version. Big thanks to our friend and her oven because without them our dramatic golden bird would have been more McNugget sized.

Our oven focused on the green bean casserole and the mac and cheese. But before you get the idea that our oven was configured to bake both of these at the same time I should say that we had to jerry-rig an additional oven shelf with a cooling rack. As in, we laid a cooling rack across the baking pan of mac and cheese, and balanced the green bean casserole on top of it. Because our oven only comes with one shelf. That's why Stefano had to bake each of his two homemade pumpkin pies one at a time.



Everyone enjoyed the meal and we were happy to see the Italians and Americans alike going back for seconds. We kept our Stove Top secret when complimented on the deliciousness of our stuffing, and Stefano was pleased when one of the guests said the pumpkin pie was one of the best he'd ever had. In fact, the entire meal was beyond excellent, and thanks go to Stefano for a great meal and for the patience to make it in an Italian kitchen.

And let me add one more thanks - for the mounds of leftovers that kept us fed for a week. There's nothing like a fridge full of leftover turkey and stuffing to make a house feel like home.