Thanksgiving! Food, Food and Family

I love to cook. Anyone that knows me knows this simple truth of my life.

Thanksgiving is a big food holiday, I really look forward to it. My daughters were talking to me a few months ago about how excited they were about cooking with me for Thanksgiving. We cook together all the time but they were looking forward to this day. I think that was funny. They really like the dressing. I could make pans and pans full of the stuff and they would not let a bit of it go to waste. I get leery about making too much, because of storage issues. I am also concerned about excessive overeating.

I have issues with food that I have turned into a passion for cooking. The eating I leave to someone else. I want to know that the food tastes good, but the real enjoyment of the food, for me, is in its preparation. My zen moment is achieved when I am chopping, measuring, scooping and pouring.

During the holidays, more than any other time of year, I tend to take notice and stock of the way I am eating. There are occasions to prepare food that reminds me of a certain family event or memory I have of my childhood. I find that I could sit and eat myself into a stupor. Just munch and munch until I become numb from all the food and drunk from the memories, good and bad.

I can feel the anticipation build as I mull over the menu selections for the day. Making sure there are vegetables and we have prepared enough meat. This year, I was torn over whether or not to make a cake for Thanksgiving dinner. We ended up making four sweet potato pies and two pumpkin cheese cakes. They weren't super deep or tall, but they were tasty!

My oldest sister makes great mac and cheese. My children and I all look forward to eating it, because we don't indulge in cheese like that often, but when we do it is hers! I look forward to having my taste and letting the children take the rest like locusts. I don't bother to try to duplicate it, probably because it is something that I know she likes to make and I wouldn't want her to make me make it from now on if she thought that my version was better. Purely lazy! I think I am a great cook, but not so much that I can't recognize when someone else is better. My sisters are wonderful cooks too.

So, just because I need to share, here is the menu on our thanksgiving:

Turkey Whole Roasted

Extra Large Turkey Breast baked

Honey Ham - "Of Death"

Squash, Zucchini and Onion medley

Turkey Sausage Dressing

Sweet Potato Pie

Pumpkin Cheese Cake

Homemade Yeast rolls

Gotta love it!
More to come...