Thanksgiving Thanksliving 

     My Favorite Holiday. Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday during my high school and college years when it was a time of staying home with just my family. Of course I love my grandmothers and extended family, but it was nice to have a holiday when we were not driving long hours in the car or prepping and packing for the days out of town. For a few years straight my older sister and I ran the Turkey Trot 5k race. The whole family and all of the Tri-Cities would make an appearance early Thanksgiving morning to run a race so we could all feel good about binging on the grand meal later. After the race (and showers) my Dad would take my sisters and I to see a movie while mom prepared the meal; don't have any pity on her, she preferred it this way (I heard that the family carried out this tradition again and that they were the only ones in the theater, lucky them!). We would usually eat a late lunch/early dinner and then play games and just hang out. My family does not "do Christmas" before Thanksgiving, so after the holiday, we Rankins can get our Christmas spirit on and I always looked forward to that. In writing these memories, it feels like this Thanksgiving was during a different life. I am thankful for the time enjoyed with my family, but let's get to the current Thanksgiving experience. 
     Last week I was looking through the hymnal for Thanksgiving songs and came across one called Thanksgiving/Thanksliving. After laughing at the title I began to read through the song. Some of the lyrics were not exactly to my taste, but the overall message of the hymn was to live a life of thanks and praise to God. This holiday is a good reminder to yes, be thankful, but to be thankful every day, living a life of thanksgiving to God. 2 Corinthians 9:10-11 says, "Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God." So I decided the hymn was not so bad and stole the title for my blog title as well.
       This year I have so much to be thankful for that I celebrated twice! I want to share with you a little of what celebrating an all-American (although Canada celebrates Thanksgiving as well in October) holiday in a foreign country is like. With one year of living in Italy under my belt, I felt completely culinary-competent in preparing some of the traditional Thanksgiving foods as close to the real American deal as possible. For some, preparing and cooking a turkey may not be a big deal or something intimidating, but for this girl who only ever indulged in turkey goodness prepared by someone else without my help, I felt as though I was venturing into the abyss. But thank you to Kyra Karr who knew exactly how to order the bird from the butcher and to Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman) who walked me through each and every step of the turkey preparation process with pictures and words of encouragement. And as you can see in the first picture, the turkey wasn't a complete disaster.
     One of the things that I am most thankful for this year are the wonderful friends that the Lord has brought into my life. It was a pleasure to have a Thanksgiving party with the pals I made from the university last year upon arriving in Rome, and now a few of the students I have gotten to know this year at the school were able to come as well. The Lord has blessed me with wonderful people who have invited me to be a part of their lives and in return I can invite them into mine. So being away from my immediate family in the States was not a sad or difficult thing because in a sense, I had a family to spend Thanksgiving with.
     I want to share with the readers the entire Italian Thanksgiving experience, beginning with the brining of the bird to the last party game at midnight. And for anyone who has never cooked a Thanksgiving turkey, it was not hard, you can do it too! But let's start off this story with a more aesthetically pleasing picture. 

    

This was taken at the bringing out of the turkey with Irene and Michela 

     

So here the brine, this I had to prep 30 hours in advance to actually cooking the Turkey. This brine consists of mostly water, apple juice, salt, brown sugar, garlic, rosemary, peppercorns, and orange peels. After it is brought to a boil it must cool down and then the turkey goes in and sits in the refrigerator for 16-24 hrs. 

I used Rosemary from my balcony herb garden 

 So here is the turkey in its brine. I added more water at the end, this was all that fit in my pot.

Ok, so the preparation above was all done on Thanksgiving morning for the Friday night party. Now we fast forward a few hours to Thursday night dinner with Team Rome. It was a lovely time of fellowshipping, eating, and sharing what we are thankful for. I am thankful for all these wonderful people who have been my family for all the holidays as well as day to day life this past year.

Ellie

The Family 

Thanksgiving was also Kyra's (right) Birthday! So we had a non traditional birthday cake to celebrate 

And this is what happened when I said "girls, take a picture with the cake" No smiles, but this is better.

Alright, back to the preparations for the Friday Party. That morning I took my bike perched up on one wheel down our tiny elevator to the market. Taking the bike anywhere is a hassle but after having the other two bikes we owned stolen because they were kept in our apartment's secured parking lot, I now keep the third on our balcony. I needed the bike this morning because I had lots to buy and it would be a long walk with heavy grocery bags. I bought 15 potatoes and 12 oranges for 3 euro, and that’s a deal worth going the distance for. Below is a picture I took there of pumpkins. They look quite different here.

 This is the Turkey soaking in its brine which is inside a recycling bin. It just fits in our small refrigerator. 

The Pioneer Woman did not mention what to add to the inside of the bird, but with the help of the Barefoot Contessa, I put two onions, a lemon and garlic insides, to give the bird as much flavor as possible. This turkey weighed about 6 kilos which is roughly 14 lbs.

And here it is for round one in my cute oven. The top of the bird touched the ceiling, so even when the foil came off the bird during round two of the cooking process, I kept a  piece of foil on top so as not to singe the poor thing. 

This is the overall oven and stove; as you can see it’s pretty cute. Rome is also starting a recycling initiative so you can see our "go green" bins lined up as well. Getting the potatoes ready now. 

Mini Pumpkin Pies 

I know everyone reading this knows how to make chocolate chip cookies, but I got so excited making these because I used imported (thanks mom) chocolate chips and brown sugar making the prep process much easier. So instead of making the brown sugar (with white sugar and molasses) and chopping up chocolate bars it was all ready to go. Also, vanilla comes in tiny vials like the kind we get perfume samples in and I would have to buy 20 packs to get me through the holidays which would add up to roughly 20 euros. So I made my own vanilla this year, with vodka and two vanilla beans. Let it sit for 4 months and then it’s ready to go, and for all you get, it is much cheaper. 

And it’s done! When the thermometer reads 165 degrees it is completely cooked inside and ready to make its out-of-oven appearance. 

 And here it is in all its glory, complete with more fresh herbs and a maybe all-too-proud chef. 

#3, thankful this bird turned out great and our friends could have a genuine taste of Thanksgiving turkey.

Ok, now I have to carve it. Food Network instructional carving videos to the rescue. 

The table, prepared by Elizabeth, Kyra, and myself.

Andrea, Michela, Irene, and Giulia, love this bunch! 

Friends from Italy and Germany. I love our international group! The british were there as well, just not in this picture. 

Playing a round of telephone pictionary 

Mirror Selfie

     Ischitella. Home of.....

Well, home to these great kids we got to spend a couple days with doing a day camp! For all you savvy on Italian geography, Ischitella is not a part of the island of Ischia despite the name meaning "little Ischia," it is a small town located outside of Naples. When I left Naples, I felt as if I was in a third world country, I looked around and thought, "is this Europe?,"The town reminded me of central America. There are many immigrants living and working there. On the drive into the town we saw many women working in prostitution in the middle of the day, and according to the locals that is completely normal. The houses are small, the streets are filled with trash. The town is on the sea, but the sea is not swimmable because it is so polluted, really, no one swims because sickness is almost inevitable. Many of the children are uneducated and only speak in the Neapolitan dialect, making it a little difficult for me to understand them and vice versa. 

     A group of local believers, some from Naples, some from Ischitella, put on this kids camp each summer for a few weeks, doing it every other night. The structure of the camp is like VBS; the kids sing, hear a bible story, play games, have a snack, and just hang out in a small square in the town. There were around 50 kids each night with many other spectators, consisted mostly of teenagers and some parents. The kids did so well listening and engaging, and I had a wonderful time with the children and partnering with the believers in southern Italy to put on the camp. Although I was only there for the first week, it was encouraging to be apart of what God is doing in Ischitella and Naples and I pray He uses the believers and this kids camp to reach the community and share his love with these sweet people. Here are some photographs from one of the nights. 

Setting up. 

The neighborhood.

Snow cone? 

Beforehand leader shot. 

Pop the other kid's balloons and take the clothespin off their shirt without letting your balloons get popped or losing your own clothespin. 

   This month Elizabeth and I had the privilege of going to Napoli to stay for a week and help with a kids camp. There we stayed with colleagues Bethany and Amy and spent time in the city as well as in the country and by the sea. We had a great time with the kids and enjoyed the touring as well.

    Napoli is a different world. The people speak in the Neapolitan dialect and were really quite difficult to understand; I could not understand anything said to me. The city was compact, hilly, dirty, and half of those riding scooters and motorbikes weren't wearing helmets! Shocking... The pizza was delicious and the coffee superb. I had a good look into Napolitano life, which is so different from that of Rome and drastically different from that of any northern city you would visit in Italy. Here are some of the lovely places we went. 

View of the City

The beautiful girls, Amy & Bethany on the left were our wonderful hosts for the week. 

This was my attempt to take an "artsty" "hipster" picture. Nature meets city.

The girls striking a natural, happy pose. 

As I was adjusting the exposure, this photograph happened and I love the way it turned out. No editing.

Castel Dell'Ovo  

The Center 

This is the Funicolare, a small train that runs up and down a very large hill in Naples. 

 This is the Ischitella train stop. Just to give you a good insight into the look of the town. 

Here we are in the acclaimed, "nicest metro stop in Europe." I'd definitely say its a step up. The stop was very colorful, I felt like I was walking through a modern art museum. 

[Photo credit goes to Amy]

Pizza at Da Michele's...where Julia Roberts ate in Eat. Pray. Love. And one of the most famous Pizzerias in Naples. They only serve the simple cheese and sauce pizza because it is just that good. 

[photo credit goes to Amy again!]