Eating With Zoe: Thanksgiving Edition

Happy Thanksgiving, Lobsters!

I know, I know, food from me twice in one week. But, cummon Lobsters! It is Thanksgiving! What did you expect? Ok, but this time, I'm going to get a little bit creative with the concept of "eating with zoe." Being Thanksgiving, I would like to recount my gratitude in the form of a menu. May this send you peacefully into your Thanksgiving Day coma . . .

photo taken from Food and Wine

Thanksgiving Day Breakfast: perhaps an oft neglected element of a Thanksgiving Day menu, I find it absolutely essential to work this into the plans. Sitting down to a simple, relaxing, and fuel-providing breakfast is a key part of having starting a chaotic day right. This allows me to charge my engine and calmly think through the timing and tasks before me. Thanksgiving Day Breakfast makes me thankful for my mother, who usually makes it happen if she's with me. But also because she is the one who taught me how to think through and plan the timing and orchestration of cooking so well. She is such a gifted cook that it rather bores her to cook the same dish twice. That makes it hard for any one dish to remind me of her, even though all the thousands of things she's made me are always out of this world. So instead of a particular dish, I am thankful for her in the whole art of cooking. Maybe in the whole art of learning to thinking things through, following directions, pursuing excellence, finding passion in creativity ~ all cooking lessons that she also taught me to use in life. Even if she's not there, as I sit down to that Thanksgiving day breakfast, I can hear her voice in my head and her presence in my heart, and I find that focus to face the day as a fun process instead of as a daunting task.

Mashed Potatoes: As far as I'm concerned, the three core necessities of Thanksgiving are turkey, mashed potatoes, and Thanksgiving Day left overs. And mashed potatoes make me thankful for my sister, Lauren, who always takes charge and makes them amazing. I think she would probably stand with me if I said this was the most important dish of Thanksgiving, maybe the most important dish of eating, period. My sis and I are pretty different women, but there are some core parts of where we come from and who we are that no one else can share but us, and mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving is a synecdoche for the core parts of us that only us sisters can share.

Turkey: Of course you can not have Thanksgiving without Turkey. Somehow, the first time I ever got involved in putting on a Thanksgiving meal was helping my mother-in-law, Nora, cook the turkey. My in-laws were taking me in for Thanksgiving for years before I was even part of the family. I was one of the few out-of-staters at my school, and they lived only two hours away and were always generous in taking me in. It is always nerve wracking for me to take on the task of the turkey - there is so much at stake - but I always think back to Nora's calm, follow the instructions, keep it simple, you can do this, approach and I get it done. She may not be a teacher by profession, like my mother, but she truly is a great teacher at heart!

Beef Tender: No, I have not deviated from the Thanksgiving Day menu concept. This is actually a staple of my family's Thanksgiving traditions. My father HATES turkey, he also hates ham by the way, and meat-loaf, and all kinds of traditional American fare. So, whenever he is present, Thanksgiving has to include an alternative meat option, and one of his fav's is beef tender. Quirky and high maintenance though he may be, I am grateful for my father who sets the bar high, keeps things interesting and artful, and is willing to do the work to help the team reach that extra mile he's demanding of them. Cause I gotta be honest, while I actually do enjoy the turkey, I am never going to turn down some beef tender, especially if my dad is the one cooking it!

Canned Cranberry Sauce: I know, so many of you probably think there is something so wrong with me now, but I just have to have the canned cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. And under this dish, I want to express my gratitude for the industrial revolution, which has done so many things to make our lives easier. You have also brought negative, unintended consequences, but we'll figure out how to move past those, and in the mean time, enjoy our cans of a sugary redness.

Green Bean Casserole: I love that this is so broadly applied to American Thanksgiving menus that I don't even have to keep the recipe around, knowing I'll be able to find it anywhere when I need it around this holiday. This casserole makes me thankful for my grandmother, Gee, who makes sure to cover the traditional American bases. I think she might be one who has taught me by her own beautiful example, what fierce gratitude looks like. Orphaned at a young age, she was taken in by Aunt Jamie, who remains a mythical hero in our family. Without denying her past, my grandmother speaks of it with honesty that is completely overshadowed by Joy (her name and her attitude) and appreciation for a God who cared for her and a family that paints for her the picture of abounding grace He has extended to her.

Bread and Butter: This dish does not nearly do justice to the classiness of my other grandmother, "Grammy," but I know she would be thoroughly upset at a Thanksgiving meal that was missing some warm rolls and plenty of butter to slather on them. I inherited her passionate love for butter and am also a great beneficiary of her commitment to make sure that all the essentials, my "bread and butter" if you will ;), in my life were seen to. As I made my way as an independent adult, I never asked for anything, but I also never minded the occasional check in the mail that made things a little less tight. But well before that, she reinforced the important lessons my parents were trying to teach me - to love God, pray without ceasing, stop fighting with my sister.

Dessert: I'm not too picky on Thanksgiving desserts, as long as they're there. I sure don't mind my aunt's chocolate pecan pie or a simple peach cobbler, and this year I am especially looking forward to my sister's crumble, it's out of this world. The thought of dessert makes me thankful for my husband, he's my Sweet Thing. I can be a pretty intense person, way too focussed, often unwilling to enjoy life. But Manny balances my salty disposition by both helping to take some of the responsibilities off my plate, but also by helping me enjoy some of the sweeter things in life. Things as literal as sweets [I didn't really eat dessert before him], but also things like spending money on things that aren't 100% essential for survival, taking time to focus on a good conversation without trying to multi-task, or playing on the floor as a family of three instead of just trading off baby-duty so we can get responsible things done all the time. Life wouldn't be worth all the effort I put into it if I didn't have him to keep it sweet.

Thanksgiving Day Left Overs: I already mentioned last week how much I love the left overs. My memories of the holiday are most vivid around this course. By this time, enough time has passed for the family to all settle in together. I have fond memories of long, drawn out, stimulating discussions with cousins, uncles, grandparents, and friends, all over a nice, simple turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich with a nice heap of mashed potatoes on the side. So in honor of one of my favorite Thanksgiving courses, I am thankful for you, my extended family, friends, and Lobsters. Thank you for your engagement and your presence.

Who and what are you feeling thankful for today, Lobsters?