Eating with Zoe: Long Distance Influence

My favorite part of Thanksgiving has always been the leftovers. Always. Tasty slabs of turkey meat, a 'lil mayo, canned cranberry sauce, and white bread. I look forward to that sandwich all year. On the years I do not get to partake in this sandwich, I get very very depressed. What is it about those few extra hours that make the Thanksgiving food so much more delightful?

Perhaps it is the release of all the pressure of the formal Thanksgiving Dinner. Once the food is just left overs, you can let your hair down, kick back, and just enjoy each other's company however you wish. Eat it standing at a kitchen counter, sprawled out on the floor while playing some games, curled up on the couch watchin' some football, whatever suits your fancy. It is casual, it is communal, it is comforting!

The first Thanksgiving I ever spent away from home was actually with Emily's family. I remember calling my mom that afternoon in a mini-crisis because eating at someone else's house necessarily meant I did not get my leftovers sandwich. Good thing her family had all these amazing, exotic family traditions that had me sufficiently enthralled to allow me to get too depressed over it all. You should ask her about her Thanksgiving family traditions, because that is a day when Emily Fazakerley shines in the kitchen like no other! Impressive!

When we lived in the Bay Area, we were friends with one of the coolest families on the planet. One of their many cool traits as a family is their amazing hospitality. Despite the great dinners and roaring parties we did get to enjoy with them, they had one annual tradition we always had to miss out on. Each year, on the day after Thanksgiving, they hosted a party where everyone could bring their left overs to share and hang out with friends. Buh-rillllliant!!! You get to enjoy hospitality AND the magic of Thanksgiving left overs all in one. I can hardly handle it.

After years of having to miss out on this party, we are missing out yet again, seeing as how we are on the opposite coast of the country. Blerg. BUT WAIT! Sometimes there are silver linings to long distance friendships like this. See, with them so far away, there is very little [zero] overlap in our social circles, THEREFORE! I have decided that it is NOT a social faux pas to totally steal their idea and host my own Thanksgiving leftovers party.  

Thus, the annual "Reyes Remainders Replay" is born (you know, cause my husband is a mathematician, get it? remainders? heh)! I can't wait. Even if no one shows up, I will have a grand festive time with my own family being in town, making a little extra hooplah over the leftovers this year. They may not exactly be mine to give, but nevertheless, I extend to you the rights to throw your own left overs party. Just please report back and let me know how it goes! 

Isn't it cool how even friends that are far away, whether or not I am faithfully in touch them, have touched my life in a moment and steered my path, even if only slightly?