Four years ago today my family was introduced to the wonderful world of heroin. Yay! My brother came high to Thanksgiving dinner to tell us he was flying to Florida because he needed some time to chill. It was awful and unfortunately, we didn’t even know the half of it. The long sordid tale of hurt, heartbreak, and addiction began today 4 years ago. My fondness for Thanksgiving left just as my brother did.
There was a time that Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. I have countless memories of amazing meals made by my grandma and late nights hanging out with my cousins. The night before Thanksgiving was my favorite night of the year, thanks in part to the Strongsville Cafe. I would meet up with my girls, drink vodka until I thought pool hopping was a good idea, and head home nice and hungry for the next day’s feast. Those days are long gone and I have absolutely no desire to drink till stupidity but I do miss the feeling of joy that Thanksgiving gave me. Today as I reflect on my many wonderful Thanksgiving’s, I find myself drifting to my memories of my Italian Thanksgiving.
I lived in Italy when I was 21. I shared an apartment with 2 Italian girls and went to school at American University (with Americans). We formed a tight group and when Thanksgiving rolled around we all wanted to celebrate. The problem was that Italy doesn’t do Thanksgiving. Nor do the people eat turkey. Or green bean casserole.
The school set up a delivery of turkey’s to the local supermarket and my friend Ry and I set out on foot to pick our bird up. We arrived and met our dinner. He had a head…and feathers. He was also 40 lbs. Ry carried him back to the apartment (almost 2 miles) and being the sissy pants that I am, I delegated the plucking and the decapitation to him. In the meantime I began my mad search for the ingredients to make green bean casserole, my favorite t-give dish.
I found myself back at the grocery store searching for Campbell’s mushroom soup. They didn’t have it. SHOCKER. I decided that I would make it from scratch. I trudged across town to my school, got on the interwebs, and printed a recipe. I headed back to the store to buy the soup ingredients and realized I hadn’t bought fried onions. Guess what? Italian supermarkets don’t have fried onions. I decided again to go from scratch. I would buy onions and eggs and flour and deep fry them myself. For a girl that had never really cooked before I was apparently feeling quite adventurous. That or I was extremely high.
