Thanksgiving friends 2 of 2

This the FANTASTIC Piper family. Dave is American and Yuki is Japanese. Their sons are Jay (3) and Kosei (1). They moved to Trani about three months ago. It has been such a joy having them here. Olivia and Eileen babysat for the boys yesterday and are looking forward to doing it again soon.

This hansome man is Mario. He is Eileen's tutor/translator. He puts up with a lot, believe me!!! It looks like he enjoyed himself. Good.

Wine anyone?

Sue on the left, Reese and Mauro...Oh, hi Mauro!!!...and on the right is Francesco, Sara's husband. He is such a nice man. We enjoy his company and look forward to many more meals with this group.

This is Gabbi. What an angelic face! Don't tell him I said that.

For more of our Thanksgiving pictures visit our friend Reese's blog: Rambles with Reese

Thanksgiving: The Friends 1 of 2

Lisa and Brian are new additions to Trani. They just married and she is the Boeing employee. Brian is looking for fun things to do in town. He contacted one of the fishermen down at the port to see if he could do some fishing with him...very industrious! We are excited they are here.

Rick, Dani, Dani's mom Sara and Alexandra. Sara and Alexandra are in the english language book group I go to once a month. They are both fantastic ladies. Sara is American married to an Italian and Alexandra's parents were Italian and English.

Mauro and Reese. FANTASTIC and FUN. Reese is Canadian and Mauro is Italian. We went to their wedding in September. We are so lucky to have them in our circle of friends.

Wow! What a great group of ladies! Gilda is our friend and lifesaver. She is Olivia's translator/tutor and goes to school with her daily. She helps us constantly. We could not be here without her. Next to her is Suzanna, Alexandra's younger daughter. Then my two monkeys...Eileen and Olivia. They are smiling because they are finally eating and not preparing or cleaning.

We ended up with two Aldo's! Aldo on the left is Olivia's boyfriend. Aldo on the right is Alexandra's husband. Oh, and Rick is hiding in the corner. Just a note as I look at this table. It is unusual for Italians to have all their food on the table at once. Usually it is served in courses. Passing and eating everything on one plate is not common. Needless to say, we ate American style but after trying to get everything out at once still hot I can see the advantage of bringing it out over a long period of time....

More friends on the next post....

Thanksgiving '09 Trani, Italy FOOD

Happy Thanksgiving! This was the first Thanksgiving we hosted in Trani. We wanted to include so many people but we were limited by space and supplies. In this part of Italy it is quite unusual to get a whole turkey. We went to the butcher to order one in advance. They had never had an order for such a large bird (7.4 kilos, 15 lbs). Ovens are small here. Would our bird fit? Barely. We cooked these extra legs in the morning to make sure there would be enough for everyone.

Fresh cranberries for the sauce from the base in Naples. Haven't seen them in the stores around here yet so a friend brought them to us.

Eileen's homage to celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver. He loves to put clementines in all his holiday cooking.


Carrots for 500! At least that's what Olivia and Eileen thought after peeling and chopping five containers. Yes, we did have leftovers. The girls were such great helpers. They cooked, cleaned and entertained. You guys are great!

One of too many batches of potatoes. I miscalculated and had them cook four bags of potatoes to mash. Will figure on less potatoes per person next time.

See my next posting for pictures of the party itself! We had a blast entertaining new and old friends. We had 24 guests and I wish we had room for 24 more. Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays and it is such fun to introduce it to new friends. We enjoyed doing it in Germany and now Italy.

Searching for Latte Macchiato

It is Saturday morning, the girls are at school, grocery shopping is complete and we are looking for a coffee. We decided on one of our favorite bars (bars in Italy mean coffee shops) but to get there we must pass several others all in the space of a few hundred meters. This is the first... Cafe Italiano
This is the second, 7 Nani (Seven Dwarfs)

Code Cafe

And finally, Bar Centrale!

Here are the happy smiling people who work here. We love this place!

I wanted to put a video of the latte macchiato but the blog would not allow it with all the pictures above so I am posting it on a seperate page. It is worth seeing because it will make you want to find a steamer and whip up some hot milk and espresso to make your own. If you visit us we will take you to this lovely place and you can experience it yourselves.

Italian Tree Trimmers at Work

This morning we came out of the apartment to see cones blocking off some of the parking on our street. We couldn't figure out what was in store. Then on my way back into town from dropping off the girls at school I saw! The Italian Tree Trimmers had arrived! They give the trees such a substantial trimming that it is amazing they survive the winter but they are blooming every spring so they must be doing the right thing! View of our street with the lovely trees.
Lovely trees in front of our building.

Tree trimmer doing his job. Left side of the tree "before" right side "after".

Done.

And all the lovely green branches get carted away.

A Carving Lesson

Eileen learns to carve a chicken.

Unfortunately, I haven't learned how to load the pictures in the correct order so until I do you will have to watch the process in reverse.

Here she has taken off most of the interior meat and is working on the legs and wings.

Oh yes, I love getting into this bird!

Daddy Rick helping by demonstrating. Darn, he is good!


"You see this here? Off with it!"

Eileen's bird on the left, daddy Rick's on the right.

Making that first cut.

So I do WHAT???

Traffic and Parking in Trani

As I was sitting at the computer this morning I heard a car horn outside our window. It was persistent so I got up to take a look. It turned out that a car had parked, in typical fashion, only partly in the spot thus blocking a delivery truck that was trying to go down the street. This happens all the time here. You can see that the strategy is that the blocked vehicle blasts it's horn until the driver of the offending vehicle shows up and moves the car. Today the driver of the silver car on the right side of the street arrived and moved so the truck could make a wide right swing to pass. The owner of the green car never showed up but, just in case the parking police showed up they had their blinkers going and were only "temporarily" parked in the handicap zone...RIGHT!

Lemon Tree?

Lemon or Lime?

This is our kitchen balcony. Last spring we aquired what we thought was a lemon tree. It came with an official looking card authenticating it was a lemon tree. After lots of water and TLC small white flowers emerged and then little buds of promising lemons made their debut. We waited months while the fruit grew but as the weather cooled I decided the fruit must be picked and the tree trimmed. This is the harvest. Eleven fine fruits. They look more like limes to me and when they are cut open they are green. Oh well, lemon or lime, does it really matter? I never had a citrus tree before so I am enjoying it whatever it is.