Thanksgiving

Thursday, Nov. 22

Well, as you are all aware, today is Thanksgiving! However, since my roommates and I are headed to Paris after our classes today, we had to do our Thanksgiving meal last night. However, I think this story really begins on Monday…
We made a list of items we wanted to appear at our Thanksgiving meal. I had hoped to provide the apple pie and sweet potatoes. Since we had been to the downtown grocery stores several times and knew that they don’t carry many of the items we would need, we were sure we only had one hope: hop a bus and take it to Florence’s largest grocery store, Esselunga, located in the suburbs. Allison called the school for some instructions and was told to go the Duomo bus stop, take bus 6 going towards the train station, and get off at Piazza della Vittoria. We bought bus tickets at 2.40 euros per round trip at the Tabacchi near our apartment, went to the stop, and got on a very crowded bus 6.
We soon realized the flaw in our plan: we had no idea what Piazza della Vittoria looked like. After we had passed a really large roundabout which we had the sinking feeling had been our stop, I began to ask a nearby passenger (for whose child Allison had just retrieved a fallen stuffed panda), “Sa quando…,” when she cut me off and said she couldn’t help me. Her stunned child looked up at her and asked why not to which she replied that she knew no English. Of course this made no sense since I had addressed her in Italian so I tried again, saying first, “Ma io parlo un po d’italiano! Sa quando è la fermata della Piazza della Vittoria?” To this she replied, “È passata.” Oh no! It had already passed by, just as we had suspected. Fortunately, more helpful passengers had overheard the exchange and began to help us figure out how to get back in the timeliest fashion. A woman with very good English had us get off the bus at her stop and then debated with two men (who spoke only Italian), which stop we ought to go to. Finally, we went to the right bus stop and in about 10 minutes we were got on and I had managed to tell the driver where we needed to get off.
Soon we stopped, standing still until the driver got up and informed us that this was our stop. I felt awfully silly but I had had no idea what we had been looking for, as it was not the roundabout I had then been expecting. We began walking and the driver, as he pulled away, honked the horn and pointed us in the opposite direction. My embarrassment was topped only when I stopped to ask a newspaper vendor where Esselunga was and as soon as he answered, realized that it was directly before my eyes.
We crossed the street, inserted a coin into the closest grocery cart to unlock it, headed inside and took a deep breath. It was a madhouse. We pushed and winded our way around all of the narrow aisles, several times for some, trying to find everything on our lists. In the end I was forced to give up the idea of sweet potatoes (later I found out that I might have been able to special order them: Italian vendors import them from Israel) and had to settle for some dubious-looking self-rising flour in lieu of baking soda, which I found a few days later only at a gourmet grocery store. By then I had already manufactured the pie dough for which it was needed.
We packed our finds into backpacks and headed back to the stop, climbed aboard the bus that had just pulled up and got off at a stop much closer to home than the Duomo.
The next day I spent the night making my contribution to the dinner: homemade apple pie. I had another interesting adventure when I decided to try to find a pastry cutter for the pie crust. I stopped into a “casalinghe” near school and looked around at the vast array of items associated with home upkeep before the storekeeper said, “Dimmi,” which is what Italians always say to mean, “Tell me what it is you are looking for,” or, “Can I help you,” but just literally means, “Tell me.” I tried to describe a pastry blender but after he pointed to a crostata pan and then a measuring cup I realized I wasn’t quite getting the point across. He did, too and asked me if I spoke English. He got his friend, another customer, to try to translate. By then everyone in the little store was interested and clustered around to try to help as well. This really didn’t make much difference so the poor storekeeper ended up having me draw it. I could hear him tell his friend that he had never in his life seen such a thing. However, they very kindly directed me to another, much larger store after which everyone several times said goodbye and that they hoped I would find what I was looking for. It was sweet but it made me feel like I was on a quest as futile as that for the Holy Grail.
I found the store, a very easy search since I was already familiar with the street (leads to Ss Annunziata), and looked around for quite a while. Suddenly, in a place I had already passed a number of times, there hung the only pastry cutter in all of Italy. I quickly grabbed it and, along with a rolling pin, and went to pay. Two little old ladies looked at the pastry cutter and asked each other what on earth it was. I surprised them when I said, “È un ‘pastry blender’ per fare un ‘pie.’” They looked at me like I had just landed from the moon.
But all that mattered was that I was able to make and freeze the pie for the next day.
So as I said, last night we celebrated Thanksgiving. Lesley made mashed potatoes, green beans, and chicken in wine sauce while Allison made stuffing. We also had black olives (a special favorite of Lesley’s). Since I already had my pie done, I just helped in the office of assistant to the others in order to speed things along. It was a very enjoyable meal—we had so much fun making it together! When we had finished, we quickly cleared the table to get ready for our dessert plans. At 9:30, our neighbors, Katie and Sara, and their guest, Kelsey, came over with cookies and gelato while I set out my pie and Allison set out a small cake and a blackberry crostata from our Esselunga adventure. We all had a great time and ate way too much, as should be done on any respectable Thanksgiving Day.