Sasha Alexander kicks off Christmas celebrations with gratitude dinner

Actress Sasha Alexander is kicking off the holidays by playing the perfect hostess and cooking up a big dinner for her closest gal pals as a thank you for their lasting friendship. The Mission: Impossible III star, who is married to Sophia Loren’s director son Edoardo Ponti, likes to invite her girlfriends over for an authentic Italian feast at the end of every year.
She tells People magazine, “Every year I do a gratitude dinner or lunch to thank my girlfriends for being there for me and for being amazing women. We all have such busy and full lives – and you just don’t get to spend that time together to say, ‘Thank you’ and ‘You’re so awesome’.”
“We do some very traditional Italian things, like we always eat lentils, which bring prosperity, and the minute people arrive, I tie a little red piece of yarn to their wrist, which is for good luck and health. You’re supposed to keep it on as long as it stays on. It’s something my family has always done.”
Loren usually does not attend the gatherings, but her influence is still felt as Alexander likes to cook meals from the Nine star’s cookbook, Recipes and Memories – although she likes to put her own spin on the dishes.
She continues, “A lot of the recipes take a long time or use ingredients we don’t carry here in America. I want to modernise it and make it more efficient for a family.”