katy day and happy thanksgiving

Today is also Katy Day.  Katy is my first born, born on a Thanksgiving morning once upon a time ago.  She is my joy, my inspiration and light of my life.  I love her dearly.

Tonight while reaching for that piece of pie, gather hands with those around the table and sing like this.

HBD2 Katy
HBD 2 Katy
HBD dear Katy
HBD 2 you.

From our house to yours enjoy a Happy Thanksgiving, hopefully safely ensconced in the comforting bosom of family and friends. It has become too rare that families gather to share food and stories.  Children miss out when holidays are ignored. Holiday's provide the perfect backdrop for kids to overhear grownups reminiscing about the days before wi-fi, or wireless TV remotes.

 I love to make fun of Thanksgiving, it's one of my traditions.  American's tend to have such a poor sense of history that too many folk believe the Pilgrims arrived in North America with Columbus.  In a just world, we'd be celebrating the Spanish, who arrived 40 years before the English, contribution to American culture.  At least the food would be better.

And finally, for those of you too wrapped up in the day's feast to know when to put down the fork I suggest this:

Enjoy your day, be safe. We'll leave the light on for ya.
Toad

Tradition!!!!!!

Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the US. A day which commemorates the first harvest feast celebrated by the earliest British Puritan settlers after their arrival in the North America. The history of the event is steeped in American iconography and mythology.

Most histories tell something of the gratitude of the British settlers towards the Native Americans, who taught the new kids what grew where, introduced them to new foods,(Calvin Trillin has written that Spaghetti Carbonara was an revered gift from the Native peoples to the Brits)and generally helped them survive their first winters in America.



Little is written about how whitey showed his gratitude, repaying his debt primarily with the wrong end of a blunderbust, and systematic genocide, but we moderns prefer to overlook these inconvenient truths, at least this week.

Each family has there own Thanksgiving dinner tradition.

Bless her bones, my mother was not a good cook. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, and factor in how a lifetime of 3 squares/day, 4 picky eaters, a traveling husband, and general lack of interest will take its toll on anyone. It didn't keep her from facing the kitchen every day though. Thanksgiving was her day to shine.

If you have never done it, Thanksgiving dinner is not a hard meal to prepare. A bit of prior planning helps, as does a thorough knowledge of what is expected by your family. If everyone is expecting turkey, and you serve pork, regardless of how great dinner was you have set yourself up for failure.



This post kicked off in a battle of comments last week. Most T-day foods are cliches, kicked off by the makers of mini marshmallows, canned onion ring bits, or cream of soup. Real food need hardly apply.

So what family foods will show up on your table this week, and does anyone really like or eat it, or has it just always been there?

Toad