Thanksgiving

I’m remembering a few Thanksgiving’s from my childhood today. One in particular is listening to the radio at my grandparents dining room table and listening to the news of a hijacker who was the still mysterious DB Cooper. Anytime the story comes up, I am brought back to that Thanksgiving Dinner. It was quite the diversion from the children are to be seen and not heard, very quiet dinner we were having! Another Thanksgiving was at my uncles where his new wife was preparing our meal in her new, gasp, microwave! There was no fancy browning feature and you would have thought she had committed a mortal sin with all the whispers going on in the house. I was 16 and immersed in reading the book, Mother Dearest, in a quiet section of their house, trying to ignore all the hubbub.

Perhaps these quiet ‘family’ holidays were why I was determined to have our Thanksgiving’s be a little more raucous. We would rent the most current video from Blockbuster to watch DURING dinner, Batman or whatever else two boys would have fun watching. The kids would participate in the meal prep somehow, whether it was making the cranberry sauce or pouring cocktail sauce over a cube of cream cheese and putting crackers and shrimp on a platter. We both agreed that pretending to have come from Hallmark type families wasn’t a charade we wanted to continue so we would make the holidays are own. We are happy that we gave our boys the permission to choose how they would celebrate days like Thanksgiving. Both my daughter in laws like the canned version, bless their souls haha! I was tempted to buy each a can, put a bow on it and drop it off on their porches today!

This year I am skipping a turkey, though I’ve spent a few days preparing a good turkey stock from giblets and turkey necks for stuffing and gravy.

We are going to make stuffing waffles this afternoon – with a scoop of mashed potatoes on the top and drizzle with gravy. I did a practice waffle last week with stove top stuffing, and I gotta say, it’s pretty darn cute and would be great for leftovers.

We are having a high carb weekend so I advised him to be sure he is well insulin-ated today! I dug out a recipe from an old friend, I haven’t made this hash brown dish for decades but I can tell you as I’m watching the world cup today, it is smelling very good. I made Alston Brown’s mac and cheese yesterday. I will make the traditional bean casserole and I guess I could slice up the cucumbers and carrots and have a few ‘healthy’ choices available for us, though maybe I should make onion dip….

I am grateful to have the freedom to do what we want on these holidays, to be in jammies with an apron and cook our favorites and have a table full of food to nosh on all weekend. Whether you are foraging for your meal, having a houseful of friends and family or a quiet day, I wish everyone a day to find something to be thankful for.

#thanksgiving #mealplanning #doyou #memories #cranberrysauce #heavycarbs #stuffing #waffles #love #liveyourbestlife #fromthisdayforward