Thanksgiving and Food

I used to stress out about somehow keeping the food piping hot until it was time to put it on the table...what food we were having and when it was brought to the table having been more or less predetermined by time and tradition. That never quite happened. Inevitably someone became a vegetarian or developed an aversion to gluten or lactose intolerance. The turkey was never done when the instructions on the package or in the cookbook promised it would be golden brown and succulent, but it was frustratingly difficult  to keep so many dishes hot until we sat down to eat it. One year one of Tim's friends had finished his entire meal while some people were still waiting to serve themselves.

I had a conversation with my brother on my observation that I thought our mother must have been the one that had instilled in both of us the need to serve piping hot food. We both agreed that there is no way one can manage all the moving parts of a Thanksgiving dinner in a normal kitchen and expect it to be piping hot. Especially when all seventeen guests are standing in the kitchen so engrossed in conversation that I can't shift them. (Assigning someone to bring an hors d'oeuvre  tray and put it in the living room eventually solved that problem).

Last year some kind of turkey disaster prompted me to announce that I was never, ever cooking another turkey...ever. The funny thing is, once I said that, almost everyone agreed that they didn't really like turkey either. This year Jim and Dana are making a porchetta roast and and salmon. I am making green bean casserole, roasted Brussels sprouts with pancetta and a salad. Also my special salmon sauce.

The original green bean casserole recipe was created in 1923 by someone in the Campbell's soup kitchen and consisted of green beans (probably from a can in 1923) a can of cream of mushroom soup topped with a can of crispy onions. It's one of those recipes that tastes better than the sum of of its parts and takes about three minutes to put together,  but I got sidetracked by Google and wound up doing Alton Brown's version which took me about five hours to make....

Having obsessed about food all day...it's what we do on Thanksgiving...John went out and got pizza for dinner. His rather odd choice called Goomba is what I would call spaghetti pizza. It was weird but delicious...

I don't really care if the food is hot or how it tastes, what I really care about is the fact that the family will be together. We will miss Matt and Amy who are in New York having dinner with Julia and Claire, both in school in Boston and New York and didn't want to come home for such a short visit. Despite all my complaining about politics and power shut-offs, it is family and friends who really matter. My life is blessed and I am very grateful for that.