Happy Thanksgiving

Go spend time with Family and/or Friends.  No politics today.  Life is all about the people.  Set some time aside and enjoy them.

Thanksgiving is a big, big deal at our house. Christmas only beats it by a nose. In some ways, I actually like Thanksgiving better.

When the wife and I started this … well, frankly, I started doing this and she joined me a few years later.  And it goes back to the feasts we had in my large family growing up, which often included other friends and aunts, uncles, and cousins.

To me, Thanksgiving is about Family, Friends, Tradition, and Food.  For all of which I'm thankful.  Especially about the family and the friends.  They are the true measure of wealth.

I grew up — for Part II of my childhood, in a poor (by American standards) household. But even before that, there wasn’t a lot of boxed food or pre-prepared stuff in the house. And I grew up cooking, taking over most of the evening cooking duties (and during the week all of the breakfast duties) from my mother, who was completely crippled with rhumetoid arthritis at 32.

I liked cooking. I don’t like it as much now, but mostly because it takes too much time and I have other things to do.  So Thanksgiving is an opportunity for me to practice that craft, and pour a lotta love into it for family and friends. At first, it was often just the wife, me, and stragglers in town who had nowhere else to go.  We've even had kidzdad here for Thanksgiving many times over the years when he was alone.  Because the kids like it better here. :-)  And he is their dad.

But back to the story.

I made the pies (down to the crust), bread, mashed potatoes, yams, dressing, and cranberry sauce from scratch. Gravy from the turkey. Real whipped cream that starts out as cream and gets whipped, with sugar added along the way. I’d start about 10 in the morning. Maybe 9. And we’d eat about 4. Big white chef’s apron. Several batches of dishes done. Wine sipped along the way….

I got everything geared toward a mood from a fire in the fireplace right down to the acoustic instrumental music mix I play quietly in the background (if you have access to Rhapsody, click here). There wasn’t even any football watched (though it’s ok if those interested go down to the family room to watch … but that hasn’t happened real often).

Over the years we’ve let a few more conveniences such as refrigerated pie crusts slip into the mix, but it’s still a lot of food prepared from the bottom up.

I love it. It’s an awesome holiday. Fork up some turkey and cranberry sauce, and lift a glass. If you listen very carefully, you’ll hear mine “tink” it.

Huzzah! Happy Thanksgiving!