Thanksgiving

As I was here in Geneva for Thanksgiving, I was able to share some of my traditions with the sisters, and enjoy a great holiday. Although, it was a bit difficult to be away from family during the holiday, the sisters here made me feel very special. They very much love this American holiday, and wish that of all the traditions the Italians have adopted from the Americans, that this one would be adopted as well. They do not celebrate this celebration here, so I was able to explain the background of why we celebrate the feast, and the traditions of food, football, and family.

For lunch, we talked about the holiday, and everyone was telling me Happy Thanksgiving. But, it was a bit unusual because they were wishing me good luck with my future, and congratulated me, which has never happened on other Thanksgivings. Because it was "my" holiday, they knew it was special to me. So the girls started to joke how this day was Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, and all celebrations for me wrapped in one day. They even kiddingly started to sing the "Happy Birthday" song. When I was leaving the dining room to go back to work, the sister who knows some French, Sr. Maria, but does not speak very often, even told me Happy Birthday. I tried to say "no. its not my birthday," but it was difficult to explain since she doesn't understand English. But it was very cute.

I later decided that I wanted to have at least, some of my Thanksgiving food tradition at dinner. So, I decided to make a pumpkin pie. But, let me tell you, was it an adventure to make this happen. Chiara and I left the office around 2:30 and went to the grocery store. We could not find any mashed pumpkin in a can. So, I decided to call one of the teachers at the school, who is an American, and a very sweet person. She told me where the American store was, so I could find what I needed. So, we headed to downtown to find the store, and first we took the wrong street, so we had to turn around and that took a while.

We finally made it to the American store, and got our pumpkin pie and sweetened-condensed milk, which apparantely they don't use here. After that, we had to go back to the grocery store to find the other ingredients at a more reasonable price. It took asking 4 different people to find pie crust. Pie crust is usually not in a non-native speakers vocabulary, and Chiara didn't know how to say it in French. Anyway, we finally got our crust and returned to the house to make the pie.

After putting the pie in the oven (in celcius degrees, by the way, so I to convert from farenheit), it started to l0ok a little funny, as you can see in the picture. It was finished cooking, so we took it out and it did not look very appetizing, so, to say the least, I was a bit worried about how it would taste.

We had some leftover mix, so Chiara and I decided to make some pumpkin pancakes. They actually weren't too bad, with some sugar on top.

Finally, it came to have all the community try the pie, of course with whipped cream on top...and they really liked it! I was so happy. I even thought it tasted very good. I doubted my cooking skills, but it

turned out better than I expected. So, that was my Thanksgiving day, and I couldn't have asked for anything better, except of course having my family with me, and a good football game to watch.

Ciao