YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!

Being an Italian American, I take great pride in the ‘American’ part. What this means is that although I am by heritage Italian, and all my friends, (both of them) are American, that I have to show my true colors: red, white, and blue.

There are basic holidays that require my being ‘American’ such as the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving in particular.

When it comes to the fourth of July, I can nibble down a few hot dogs and a hamburger, maybe some ribs and some steaks, it can be accompanied by coleslaw and potato salad and a beer or two. Corn? How can you live without it? No problem, keep me by the grill and I will be very American.

Then, Thanksgiving Day comes along and suddenly I get the shakes, my hands are unsteady and my mind drifts to my past. Turkey, who the hell likes turkey? Who the hell wants turkey?

A holiday and I’m eating turkey? If it is a holiday I should be eating lasagna, or ravioli or even manicotti, but not turkey!

OK, this is America, make the turkey, but surround it with real food, pasta, maybe a little pasta fagioli, maybe a nice antipasto of salami and cheese and maybe little olives and Fanucchi.

When a ship is about to capitulate to a pirate ship, it would be allowed to fire a shot across the bow of the pirate ship as a code of honor. Just like that ship, we carry out the turkey and have a little piece. The rest we saved for the Native Americans or sandwiches during the week.

When Pasquale Enrico said: “Giver me liberty or giver me death”, he was really saying give me pasta or fugettaboutit!