Canadian Thanksgiving 12 October

Auguri! Happy Thanksgiving to all. This is the long weekend of my favorite holiday of the year, I always enjoyed this holiday no matter where I am in the world. In Canada it is a harvest festival, a very ancient feast day, which goes back to antiquity. In Italy, we are into the season of olive tree harvesting and olive oil pressing which will continue until december. Chestnuts have also started to appear on the market and different varieties of apples. Thanksgiving or l'Action de Grace as it is called in French, is a time to reflect on what we have and how we should be thankful. Thankful for being the Citizen of a country which is govern by the rule of laws, by a Parliament and by a modern civil service dedicated to the public good. We may as Canadians complain often and feel we are hard done by and gripe but in the end if you take a good look and reflect on it, you come to understand that we have it good in terms of quality of life. Also in terms of family, friends and my spouse of almost 32 years, I have been blessed. So on this day I have a lot to be thankful for.

We had Sunday lunch, nice half turkey about 4.5Kg just enough for some left overs but nothing substantial. The stuffing was made with prosciutto sausages and a hard grain bread, very good. The bird was moist not one dry part in it. The bird came from southern Tuscany and they are left to roam around, so the meat is nice, plump and light. Nice apple pie for dessert with home made cinnamon gelato. We also had Will's famous Smokey pumpkin soup with smoked ham. This year he added to the soup Madeira wine instead of Marsala wine, it was much better and not so sweet.

Our friends in Italy came to lunch, we were 6 all together on a lovely day, the weather was sunny and around 22C with that blue sky we only get in Rome. Tomorrow we are going to visit the park of the ancient Aquaducts, those great elevated waterways which brought all the water to Rome and allowed the city to become one of the wonders of the ancient world, millions of gallons of water every hour to feed the fountains and the great bath houses, they were destroyed by the barbarians in 410 AD. It will be nice to enjoy the fresh air outside the city.

Enjoy the holiday!