We are traveling to Roanoke to see Jamie’s family for Thanksgiving. It’s interesting that we have a holiday that is essentially about food. I am all for a holiday about food, I think we should have more of them.
Jamie’s family does a good meal for Thanksgiving, but for me Thanksgiving just isn’t the same without my family and our food. Food is central to my family. We cook to show people that we love them. We cook to comfort people. I learned my family history through the recipes that have been passed down, and I learned to cook by simply being in the kitchen with my mom. Everything we eat is made from scratch. I didn’t know that dinner could come from a box until my second year of college. I certainly didn’t know that you could buy pie crust at the store. I’m not a snob about it or anything, I just didn’t know because we always made everything in the house. Prepared foods were a complete novelty to me and my brothers.
There are several dishes that we don’t get at any other time of the year but Thanksgiving. A sampling:
Bourbon Sweet Potato Souffle with Brown Sugar and Pecan Topping-it is as amazing as it sounds. The brown sugar gets all crusty and the pecans all toasty. And I come from the Deep South (Clarkesdale, MS) where you have to have at least one dish that contains bourbon.
Asparagus Casserole-Asparagus in a bechamel cream sauce with boiled eggs and cheddar cheese. It’s only good if you like asparagus and me? I love asparagus.
Dressing-We call it dressing, not stuffing. We eat it on the side. We make it with cornbread and sage and onions and celery and chicken stock. I don’t know what this chewy white bread with raisins stuff is, but it’s not dressing.
Dessert varies in our family. We don’t really go in for pumpkin pie, we just don’t like it too much. Mom usually makes a chocolate meringue pie, from scratch, naturally. And we might have Chery O’Cream Cheese pie, which is a sort of bakeless cheesecake with cherry topping that my dad goes crazy over.
I am missing my family a lot this year. They’re in Alabama, a 14 hour drive, and I probably won’t get to see them for Thanksgiving or Christmas (the Christmas menu is completely different from the Thanksgiving menu, I’ll tell you about it closer to Christmas), and I am really sad about that. We’re a little bit dysfunctional, but we love to be around each other.
I love Jamie’s family, and they love me, and have done nothing but welcome me into their brood. Still, Thanksgiving just isn’t the same with them. I will enjoy my Thanksgiving, we’ll have fun and laugh and eat too much. But secretly, deep inside, I’ll be wishing I was in Alabama, with cornbread dressing, my brother kicking me under the table, and my mom making us take turns saying what we’re thankful for.
This year, I’m thankful for Jamie, my cats and my dog. I’m thankful for Jamie’s family, who loves me. And I’m thankful for my family, who just might set a place for me at the table, just in case.
Thanks for being so diplomatic with the mention of my family’s Thanksgiving food tendancies. You know, the dry turkey and cracker-like dressing.
-The Love Of Your Life.
Welcome to the blogging world!It looks like his is a new blog! I hope your Thanksgiving with your husband’s family was good and you didn’t miss your family too awful badly. I’ve found stuffing my face with cheesecake always helps chase away the blues!
This year, my daughter’s fiance who hails from Baton Rouge came to Thanksgiving dinner. I like to include a guest’s favorite and hope that it is something that isn’t already on the menu. Leon (soon to be son in law)wanted dressing like his Dad makes. Now, I am ususally very flexible and love trying new things but he wanted to mess with my dressing!!! So in the effort to make him feel at home, I said, “honey, it would be great if he wants to make the dressing!” all the while thinking, if he adds red pepper or hot sauce to it I will cry. Well, he made the dressing, added cayenne pepper and it was very good, not what I am use to but very good. He was so happy and it was important to me that he had a little taste of home when he could not be in Baton Rouge. I hope that when they go to see his folks at Christmas that his Mom will allow Stephanie to bring a dish to her table.