Thanks for being in my family.

 The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.  ~Dodie Smith

Tomorrow is turkey day.  A day of gathering with family.  I've heard a lot of talk shows discussing the best way to navigate these functions.  The rules I remember go something like this: 

1.  Thanksgiving is not the time to drop any bombshells.  Save your horrible news for a different day.

2.  Help with the clean up.  The host has spent hours cleaning their house and cooking the food, the least you can do is help with the dishes.

3.  Stay away from controversial subjects at the dinner table.  This includes politics, religion, and personal information that is none of your business.

4.  Do not talk about the diet you're on.  Do not talk about the diet that anyone is on.  Food is a huge part of the day.  Eat what you're going to eat, but there's no need to explain the detailed reasoning behind your choices.

5.  Put your phone away.  Have some face to face conversation instead. 

6.  When all else fails, suck it up.  Put on your happy face whether you feel like it or not.  Fake it until you make it.


I'm fortunate that I don't have a family that I have problems with.  I enjoy all of them.  I'm still very lucky to have one set of grandparents to enjoy the holiday with, along with my parents, my siblings and their families, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  There are a lot of us.  A lot.  We have fun together.  We laugh a lot.  Most everyone plays nicely together.

I know how lucky am that this is the case.  And I am thankful for it. 

Family life is a bit like a runny peach pie - not perfect but who's complaining?  ~Robert Brault

Toast with a great deal of butter

“your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

 

Harvesting season is upon us again.  I finally got down to making zucchini relish late last week.  I finished cutting up all the vegetables and they looked so pretty that I had to take a picture.  Weird?  Maybe, but it sure is a colorful photo.  I love colors.  I love food.  I love reading.

My daughter came home from school last Thursday wanting a fried egg for her after-school snack.  What??  Where did that come from?  It certainly was a different snack request than I'm used to hearing.  Apparently, she'd been reading a Nancy Drew book on the way home from school and Hannah had made a fried egg for Nancy and it made her hungry for one.  I do have an interesting child.  She's also the kid who holds a great fondness for "toast with a great deal of butter".  This taste for toast done this way was acquired shortly after reading one of the Mercy Watson books.  Which one, I'm not sure.  Now, if only she'd pick up a book about sweet potatoes.

When you've spent your life immersed in the written word, books seep into everything you do.  I come from a family that reads.  I grew up loving peas porridge and hating split pea soup.  The exact same recipe was used to make each, but a nursery rhyme can't be wrong and everyone likes peas porridge no matter what temperature it is.  What other foods did we come around to because of what we read in books?  I don't know.  But I was intrigued by the idea of sugar snow via Laura Ingalls Wilder and visions of fair food danced in my head after Templeton's feast in Charlotte's Web. 

I may be older, but there is still a line that can be drawn between what I'm reading and what I'm making for dinner.  I'm much more likely to make pasta if I'm reading a book that takes place in Italy.  Reading Pearl S. Buck's books means we'll be having rice of one sort or another.  Because I'm older, I also spend more time reading actual cook books.  Perusing recipes leads to all kinds of adventures with food. 

Why not?  It's funny the way we can be altered by what we read.  One afternoon you're content getting an apple for our afternoon snack, and the next day; after a line or two from a Nancy Drew book, you may be requesting fried eggs. 
 

Our minds are like our stomachs; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetites.
-John Quinton