Mamma Americana

Thanksgiving Goodies

I went shopping for Thanksgiving yesterday. Not an easy task when you're living abroad. If you know where to look though in Florence you can find cranberry sauce, canned pumpkin, fresh sweet potatoes, and even a turkey.

I do most of my shopping for international foods at Vivi Market, in via del Giglio, 20/22 (not far from the train station). It's not cheap: I paid €30 for a can of pumpkin, two small jars of cranberry sauce, 5 sweet potatoes and a can of treacle (molasses). But then again, the taste of home is priceless!

I love the design on this can of molasses. I'll be using it for gingerbread cookies in December.

Our turkey is purchased every year from the same butcher inside Sant Ambrogio market. Italian turkeys taste better than their american counterparts. Maybe it's because there isn't much of a market for them so there's  little or no industrial farming. That's my guess. They taste divine. Nice and juicy.

Last year's bird that I cooked for 20 people

Tripping

I've been planning our next trip to Los Angeles over the last week or so. Plane ticket prices haven't come down despite the fact that gas prices have dropped dramatically. So we finally bit the bullet and forked over $1,200 for tickets for the baby (on lap) and I. Lorenzo's ticket was slightly cheaper: $1,000! This is the most we have ever paid for a ticket in the ten years or so that we have been flying back and forth across the atlantic. 

The part that was supposed to make this trip special, a trip to Hawaii paid for with air miles from Alitalia, has fallen through. Alitalia is no longer offering LAX as a hub for departures. So I'm seriously disappointed, but if we can find a really good flight/hotel deal we may still go. Tourism has been hard hit by the financial crisis and there are supposedly some really good deals to be had (according to the papers). We'll see.

In the meantime, we need to use up our miles (we have a special offer that expires in Feb.) before Alitalia goes bankrupt. People have been predicting Alitalia's doom for years, but it really does look to be on it's last legs.

A strike that was held on Monday may be the next to the last straw. Air France- KLM won't buy it until the company becomes profitable again, but all efforts to restructure the company have been met with resistance by the employees. Job cuts are needed badly because the company is bloated. So instead of accepting that some will lose their jobs, they strike. What they don't realize is that they're risking everyones job if Alitalia fails. 

It's bad enough already: Alitalia's prices are higher than Air France, Lufthansa, and KLM to name a few. You pay more, but get terrible service and don't know if you'll be stranded somewhere if they decide to go on strike at the last minute. Who wants that? 

I hope that it stays solvent at least until early December though. We'll probably go to Paris for an extended weekend (paid for with our miles). Lorenzo's aunt and uncle have a time share in Paris (Montparnasse), so we'll meet up with them. Ah, Paris!

Our little pumpkin

Here's our little pumpkin! Isn't she cute?

Mom and Dad went witchy

On Halloween we attended a party at Lorenzo's cousins. There were about 8 other preschoolers, all dressed up for the holiday. They were all so cute and of course they had a blast. Too bad it started raining at about 7 pm. No trick or treaters came to the door. 

Ghost and a little devil