Those who know me, know that on the 4^th, it’s an all-out summer cooking extravaganza. Lots of variety of salads (pasta, potato and fruit are always on the menu) as well as some kind of fresh fish. And always the legendary blueberry pie. Our friend, Marcie, is always there to help us celebrate (and to cook!).

Well. Here we are in Italy on the 4^th. Since Marcie’s gone back to the States, we have invited our apartment owners over to experience a good-old fashioned American Independence Day Meal. However, shortly after the invitation, a couple of challenges  emerged.

No blueberries. Okay, so I’ll switch to an apple pie. That’s about as American as it gets. No Granny Smith apples. Oops. I’ll improvise. No brown sugar. Okay, let’s go with miele (honey). But, when I get to the flour section of the Jumbo Supermercato, I know I’m really in for it. A gazillion choices for flour, but nothing that says anything remotely like “all purpose.” Instead, I see endless varieties of pasta flour and pizza flour. I make a choice (having no idea what kind of flour I am actually getting) and move on.

When I get back to the apartment, I realize I also have no measuring cups—and most importantly, no pie plate. This is going to be interesting.

There are a couple of good finds, however. Kraft mayo. Dijon mustard. American potato salad is a go. However, these are the only “American” foods I find.  If I’ve learned one thing about Italy during my time here, it’s that it is important to be flexible. For example, here’s how we get our food:

Tomatoes. We walk a little over a mile into a neighborhood and enter what looks to be a random neighbor’s house. The house is modern in a McMansion kind of way. We walk down the driveway to the back of the house, past the carport of BMWs, to find the tractor with the fresh-picked vegetables. Two stereotypically good-looking, tanned Italian 20-somethings (in bathing suits, no less!) help us with our order.  We buy about five pounds of tomatoes. The most delicious, vine-ripe tomatoes. Two Euros.

Water. We walk up a hill to the back side of the town and find the “water station.” There we put our jugs under the spigot and pay 5 cents per liter for frizzante (fuzzy) water.

Pasta. We walk the opposite way down the main road (Viale Roma as in “all roads lead to Rome”) and buy a couple of days’ worth of pasta, including fantastic ravioli filled with ricotta and spinach. We tell the counter person what kind of pasta shape we want, and he cuts it right there.

Bread and Cheese. On Tuesdays, we go to the weekly market and purchase our weeks’ worth of cheese, bread and random vegetables. We’ve been there twice now and already have seen an increase in what gets thrown into our bags because we are returning customers.

Gelato. In the evenings, usually instead of dinner, we walk down Viale Roma to what is now our “regular” gelateria. We gave up on our first place because the owner seemed more interested in keeping the regular card game of a group of men going than serving us gelato.

This evening, even though it might be a little unconventional, we will have some sort of 4^th of July celebration. My pie (cooked in a torta pan) is a little odd looking, but I hope it will be tasty. I’m confident about the potato salad, less confident about the shrimp and pea salad (made with frozen shrimp because those were the only ones without the heads on). The farmer’s tomatoes will take up space on the plate—and will be red. At least one of the items will be patriotic.

Postscript. Our American 4^th of July dinner in Italy is complete. Our dinner guests enjoyed eating American potato salad and while a bit confused about the pie, they seemed to like it.  I’m not the most patriotic person out there, but I am definitely glad I am an American. Since our Italian is basic and our guests’ English (while way better than our Italian) has gaps, discussing the history of our country was exhausting.  But, it was also lovely to have a concrete example that demonstrates no matter where we’re from, we have a lot more in common than we may think. Felice Quarto,  tutti!