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.

colazione a rovereto

We've achieved a small milestone, a first ever occurrence: the three brioche breakfast. Di solito, that is to say "usually", on Saturdays we look forward to stopping at a bar and indulging in a cappuccino and brioche each. It's just one of those things that makes Saturday in Italy special. We know that wherever we're going, and whenever we get off the train, our special breakfast awaits.

Before even arriving in Rovereto we knew we would have a cappuccino and brioche breakfast, and upon arriving the first thing we did was look around for a suitable locale. Eventually, we found a great bar with gorgeous pastries piled high on the counter and in their displays. It was very difficult to choose, but we did. And, as usual, we both enjoyed our brioche and coffee.

But then, as if in an action film from the 1980's, time slowed... Stefano and I both looked at the gorgeous untouched pastries still sitting on the counter. Then we looked at each other. Then we looked at the pastries again. There was no going back.... We locked eyes and nodded.

"Signore, we'd like another brioche."

And that was the moment our decadent Italian lifestyle hit a high note with the three brioche breakfast. But, trust me, you would have behaved the same. All of those delicious pastries, stuffed with cream and studded with nuts, swirled and curled and gorgeously baked...



Fully satiated we wandered our way to Rovereto's weekend market which, for once, resembled the markets we love to scour in the United States. It was a gathering of collectors of oddball items selling random objects of equivalently random value. In our experience it's far more delightful to explore buckets of old junk than delicately organized rows of precious antiques.

And in fact, we walked away with a gem of a find: a wooden shopping list pre-printed with the essential items an Italian household might need. Next to each of these items is a hole into which you place a small peg to indicate need. Now I'm not going to dispute the Italian version of what's important but just to give you an idea of priorities, I'll name a few: salame, pancetta, prosciutto, vino, formaggio, caffé. And such a gloriously utilitarian item cost us a mere 2 euro. Even with today's falling dollar, that's a steal.



Rovereto is also the perfect place to shop for the foods on your shopping list. We found not only the perfect salumeria but also two world class candy/chocolate shops. In fact, we were so involved in shopping for basic necessities (ie chocolate, vino and formaggio) that we nearly forgot to visit the musuem for which the town is famous.

Before heading to the MART (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) we stopped for lunch. Being in the Trentino region, close to Austria, does have it's gastronomic benefits and the food we had was tinged with glorious Austrian heartiness.



The restaurant where we ate filled-up fast with locals. In fact, the proprieters were turning away potential customers left and right because there was no more space. We knew we had come to the right place not only because we were surrounded by locals but because the food was so darn good.

My meal was like a head-on collision between dumplings and gnocchi with spinach, cheese and butter thrown in. Stefano had a pasta dish heaped with salami meat sauce. We also shared a polenta dish with mushrooms and cheese, and finished with the best apple strudel we've ever had.

After a shot of grappa to dull the pain of how much polenta with cheese costs, we went to the MART where we found minimal exhibits because we just happened to visit in that small crack of time between big exhibits. We were, however, very lucky to catch the exhibit on futurist artist Fortunato Depero and loved his unique vision.



The museum building itself is also fairly striking. A bit of a riff on the Pantheon, it's a tall circular structure with a hole in the center of the roof. The lines of its structure - white against the blue sky - were as much art as the collection we were unable to see. But despite the fact that most of the collection seemed to be in some form of transition we were happy to see what we did.

Before catching our train back to Milano we did some serious food shopping and then stopped for a drink. Happy to set down our shopping bags we each had a Spritz with Aperol and marveled over how much better potato chips taste around apertivo hour. Also, our setting was superb: we were smack-dab in front of a bounce house filled with italian children, sans shoes, hopping their way into early evening.

We left as the bounce houses were being put to rest, their bouncy-ness dissipating into the night at the hands of the maintenance men who had been waiting in the wings for just that moment... when their eyes could meet and they could agree that now was the time to shoo all the screaming kids away and deflate these giant abominations.

Kind of like when our eyes met and we agreed to indulge in the third brioche. Except there were no crying children at the café that morning. Only the cries of our cholesterol counts slowly inching towards the stratosphere...

Pasticceria: Pasticceria Andreotta, Via Roma 9, tel: 0464.421.291
Restaurant: Vecchia Trattoria Birrara Scala delle Torre, Via Scala delle Torre 7, tel: 0464.437.100

all saints

By coincidence, we spent All Saint's Day exactly where we were supposed to: the cemetery. Our timing was by chance; we were taking advantage of a day off to visit Milan's Cimetario Monumentale but most other visitors seemed to have come be pay their respects.

It was fairly crowded. There were husband's balancing large potted plants and cell phones, while wives gave directions and guided them along the paths. Grown sons scrubbed-down statues while their children watched and their elderly mothers gave never-ending streams of suggestions. And most all graves had fresh flowers or candles burning nearby.



The cemetery itself is a sprawling place with thousands of graves ornamented in a full spectrum of artistic styles. And fall has finally come in Milan so the leaves had turned, giving large swathes of the cemetery a blanket of yellow and orange. It's a beautiful place to wander, exploring the art and memories kept there.

But it doesn't take long to fixate on the inevitable... the nagging idea that everything, and everyone, comes to the same end. It's when you stop seeing the beauty of the place, and can only think of your eventual arrival, that it's best to speed away on your bicycle and rejoin the hum and buzz of the city. Hoping that on your way, the unruly Milano traffic doesn't send you right back from where you came.

f is for fumare

We can go ahead and cross "Go to Soccer Game" off of our Italy To-Do list. While we're at it we can also eliminate "Smoke a Pack of Cigarettes in Two Hours" and "Learn Italian Swear Words."

Soccer is a beautiful flow of athleticism and momentum and I envy the athletes' superhuman coordination; watching a ball get kicked around has never been so entrancing. And we were lucky enough to see a game in which the final score was 4-1 (forza Inter!) which meant five goals were scored. That brings a lot of excitement to the relatively short 90-minute competition.

Unfortunately, in those 90 minutes, I think we smoked at least a pack of cigarettes each. Because while smoking "inside" is prohibited in Italy, the stadium seems to be considered "outside" and every chain smoker in Milan was there. Honestly, the guys beside and behind us (and for the most part the stadium is filled with guys) were smoking the entire time. It reminded us of an over-crowded Chicago bar right before the concert starts.

Except that back in Chicago we wouldn't have had the opportunity to also indulge in an Italian profanities crash course. While starting out with the usual "Mamma mia!" and "Ma dai!" to show their irritation, the fans soon digressed into a colorful display of vulgarity that wasn't wasted on us. We know enough of the language to notice when conversation heard in polite company is completely thrown out the window. La Scala this was not.

Overall, though, it was a worthwhile experience. We even enjoyed the high-tech entry system designed to thwart soccer hooligans from ruining the game. What with the single-person mechanized entry gates and the metal detecting, we could have been visiting the Royal Jewels. But no, the only similarity to London was the dense fog filling the stadium, which had nothing to do with nature.

Maybe there's a reason why every female's soccer ticket is discounted by 10 euro. (They know your gender because your ticket has your name on it, and you must present I.D. to enter.) Although the women I saw at the game seemed to fit right in with the general mood of the place. Cheering, smoking and swearing. With the most time spent on - you guessed it - the smoking.

F is for fumare.