Let The Countdown Begin!

I don't count down the days to Christmas. Instead, I count down the days to Thanksgiving, because it's one of maybe a dozen days a year when I cook. Kind of like with writing, if you don't cook habitually, you don't acquire good cooking skills. Hence, the countdown. Not with anticipation, but with anxiety. Give me a chapter that needs work any day over preparing a meal.

I don't even attempt baking a turkey. A baster looks like something that belongs in a doctor's office, and an examination you dread. As for stuffing a cavity. . . No thank you. If I tried deep frying the bird Cajun-style, which is delicious, I'd catch the house on fire. So, I order a smoked turkey from Greenberg's in Tyler, Texas. These delicious turkeys are world renown and they arrive ready to serve except for carving, which my husband does. So I never actually have to touch the fowl except to eat it and the main course is taken care of.

That leaves only the side dishes, and heaven forbid they vary from one Thanksgiving to the next. The menu is etched in the stone of family annals. Which means the slicing, dicing, and chopping is the same dreary chore each year. I allow a day and a half for that alone. The cornbread for the dressing (I'm from the South, and it's dressing, not stuffing. See above.) must be made days ahead of time so it can get to the proper state of staleness...You get the idea. This one meal takes up a week of my life each year.

But on Thanksgiving Day, it's worth it. The family is so proud. I guess making the New York Times bestseller list doesn't impress like ambrosia. And they get so misty over sweet potato souffle. (From the recipes of Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House in Savannah)

In fact while I was writing this, my daughter called and asked what I was doing. I told her, and she said, (I swear) "You're going to cook? Sweet!"


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