Dinner Party Machines

Amy A. (the first one) said Fabri & I were dinner party maniacs yesterday.  We just really enjoy having people over and I like to cook, so things seem to go together quite nicely.  It's a good excuse to always have dessert & booze in the house as well. 

A week ago we had Fabri's cousins & sister over for fondue.  Fondue is great because it's a party, not just a dinner.  I made two types of broth, a French bouillon and an Asian inspired broth.  They were both big hits, especially the Asian.  One thing people have come to expect from our dinner parties is to have wine charms identifying everyone's glasses.  Italy, the land of wine, doesn't know about wine charms for some reason.  Everyone we've had over has gone crazy for them.  I have some wedding ones my mom gave me around wedding time.  I have a bunch I made myself with beads & old charms.  My newest are a set of insect wine charms I found at TJ Maxx.  Gaetano seems to really like those....

From Blogger Pictures

If those weren't colorful insect wine charms, he would be such a bad-ass biker dude. 

Saturday Fabri & I went to Ikea.  They opened a brand new store in Turin right off the Turin Beltway.  We got a new carpet for the family room (Olney's slowly destroying ours) and of course couldn't resist buying some fun Ikea stuff.  I got a beautiful red orchid, Fabri got a new fluffy pillow and Olney got a new mat for underneath his dog bowls. Though Ikea is, by definition, crazy, we had fun!

The weather has decided to play mean tricks on us.  It has been gorgeous all week.  Cold, but dry & no fog.  Look at how gorgeous Mount Viso is from the field next to the house!

From Blogger Pictures

The problem is, the weekend arrives and so does the rain and fog.  The fog started rolling in around 3 or 4 this afternoon and it's supposed to be foggy & rainy all weekend.  Stinks.  And this weekend and next Fabri isn't working at all!  Not one shift!  This is the first time in a long time.  It would be nice if the weather would cooperate a little so we could get a lot out of these weekends.

So I'm getting ready for Thanksgiving.  I have all of my recipes copied; I have a shopping list and a basket full of food and decorations ready; and I'm getting my game plan in place.  Maria Pia is buying the turkey for the occasion and went to order it on Wednesday.  She called me while I was at the museum and asked if I want a female or male turkey.  I had no idea.  I asked her what the difference was and she said the size.  Females are about 8 kg and males are 20 kg.  I had told her before we want between 10 and 13 kilos for our dinner of 15 (thank you butterball website).  She said then she'd better get the 20 kg bird.  I said ok, not having a firm concept of how much 20 kg is.  When I got home I calculated that in pounds.  FORTY-FOUR lbs of turkey!!!  I started freaking out.  Where are we going to cook this massive bird!?!?  How long should I cook it for!?  Butterball's website only goes up to a 30 lb turkey!  I'm going to have to put this thing in the oven the day before.  As I did more turkey research, I got even more nervous.

Thankfully Maria Pia came over last night (we had pizza & cake for Francesca's 20th birthday) and we discussed the turkey.  Gaetano had already said the same thing, it's too big for the oven.  I said if she can't get one that's between 10 and 13 kilos,  then maybe she can get two small birds.  I am sure we could find room to cook them.  I wanted to try cooking in their wood pizza oven anyway.  She said she would call back the turkey store, so I'm feeling better about it now. 

From Blogger Pictures

This is a wooden turkey made by Grandpa and Fabri bought me those flowers today for no reason. :)