I went shopping this morning, but I never did find fresh cranberries (or even canned cranberry sauce). So at the suggestion of my friend Rebecca, I bought dried cranberries at her favorite fruit & nut stand upstairs at the Mercato Centrale. I'm planning on soaking the dried cranberries in a bit of red wine to bring them back to life before making the sauce...I guess Thanksgiving in Italy takes some improvising, but it should be tasty.

I also bought some really nice pecans from the same fruit & nut stand. The last ingredients on my list were light corn syrup and brown sugar - these sound simple enough, but just don't seem to be used here at all. So this brought me to one of my favorite international food stores in Florence - Vivi Market. It's located very close to the Mercato Centrale on Via del Giglio, 20/22 (tel 055 294911). In addition to all the Asian, Mexican and Greek products, they also offer American "staples". Some of these things I would never buy (i.e. pre-made cake icings) but some are a welcome taste of home (peanut butter, real maple syrup, Heinz ketchup, ...).

Today Vivi only had dark corn syrup (for a whopping 6,80 euros!). I need light corn syrup, so I chose something new to me called "Golden Syrup" (I'll give that a try for only about 3 euros). I think it might be a British product, and it tastes enough like light corn syrup that I don't think I'll even notice the difference in the pie. Vivi did have normal dark brown sugar (most brown sugar in Italy is not moist like we have in the US) - so no improvising there. Now I just have to start cooking... 

Ellen