This post might be about my US Thanksgiving meal in Italy, but it starts with a photo of the Canadian flag. Although I am proud that my country is represented in the courtyard of the building housing the Gastronomic Sciences University, it’s a strange representation. The flags of all the other countries there are correct, but somehow the Canadian flag has had the red stripes and flag rotated to fit the ‘long format’ it is hung in. Hmmm….it’s supposed to look like this: 
Okay, enough patriotism. What this post is really about is a great dinner our class was invited to by our colleagues who are just finishing the same course, but in Italian. However, they also have a large number of American attendees, so a celebration was in order, with two of largest turkeys I have ever seen:
The chef from the Alma Cooking School seemed quite excited about carving it, and he should have been. It was delicious! Everyone brought some sort of side dish, so we were able to taste good old-fashioned mashed potatoes, wild rice, a cranberry and orange chutney, green beans with almonds, and so on and so on! I contributed a panzanella salad, made up of leftovers from our party the night before. I soaked some cubes of stale bread in a bit of water, and mixed them in with cut-up cherry tomatoes, thinly-sliced fennel, and grilled zuchinni in a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Not bad for a last minute throw-together! Today in class we get our first lesson in cheese technology…andiamo! (let’s go!)
