Today's the Day

So, actually, our real Thanksgiving dinner is tonight. In Italy, of course, Thursday was not a holiday; everyone works, so Americans in Milan tend to have their Thanksgiving dinners on the Saturday after.
Yesterday, I double butterflied the turkey breast, beat into a state of relative (if lumpy) flatness, spread the mushroom-pancetta stuffing over it, rolled it up and tried my best to tie it together. We don't have the needles called for in the recipe. It seemed like an insurmountable task. This photo above shows you about as far as I could go without professional help. Rolling the thing with a combination of plastic wrap and newspaper did make things a lot easier than with just the plastic.

So after spilling a lot of the stuffing on the floor, I went to our butcher and asked for a "roasting net" to keep the roll together in the oven. They didn't have one but offered to tie it themselves. Elated, I went home, got the turkey roll, brought it back to the butcher and he expertly layered the pancetta strips longways, and strung the thing up beautifully, expertly and secretly! I looked on as he did this and all the knots he made he did really quickly. So, I remain dependant on him for tying roasts. Here is the result. It's a work of art. My parents in Chicago are having their second Thanksgiving dinner today as well with my brother Mike and the family. They roasted (or should I say incinerated) their bird using a recipe from Dominick's, the local supermarket chain. Just goes to show you, sometimes recipes don't work and you have to wing it. Happy Holidays.