Thanksgiving Part One

Hello Blog, I'm sorry that it's been a while. This has been a month of personal struggles and the bright invitation to go back to work. Just one day a week, two classes of really fun kids. I had almost forgotten how much I love teaching kids to cook. It's great to be back.

Tonight, at coffee with some of my girlfriends, the subject of Thanksgiving dinner preparations came up and one suggested that I blog a little about the subject. Thankfully, my wise mother made sure that I knew how to cook a turkey before I left her home. What a huge favor that was. My first Thanksgiving dinner that I cooked completely on my own was the third after my husband and I were married. He was deployed with the USMC for the two before that, so by the time I could make him a Thanksgiving dinner it was a really big deal. Dinner that year would be for myself, my husband, our oldest daughter and one of our very good USMC friends. Needless to say, I did all of the cooking, serving and clean up myself. It was a lot of work. Almost too much for me to really enjoy myself. Over the years I felt the need for Thanksgiving to become a more simple affair. Martha wouldn't approve of my methods but my reward is the calmness of the day. I get to watch the parade with my kids, serve dinner from an almost clean kitchen and enjoy the rest of the day without much effort. Sometimes, you just have to be given permission to shake things up and simplify your life. You can so do this.

The reason my kitchen is mostly clean on Thanksgiving day is due to the fact that nothing is actually cooked on the holiday, only reheated. Including the turkey. Shocking, right? I haven't cooked a turkey on Thanksgiving day in at least ten years and I don't plan on ever doing it again. Tomorrow I will tell you why your turkey turns out better for having cooked it the previous day. By next Wednesday evening, there will be a stack of foil roasting pans in our fridge of various sizes, all ready to be popped in the oven for dinner. We use Chinet platters for dinner, but with real flatware. You see, I want to watch football too. Scraping and washing dishes isn't how I want to spend the holiday. I purchase an extra box of plastic storage bags to send leftovers home with guests, or to store them myself, then the foil pans are trashed too. Dinner is always wonderful but in a more relaxed atmosphere because most of the work is done.

Over the next couple of days I will walk you through the basics of roasting a turkey and share some of my favorite recipes. Remember why we celebrate this holiday. If you need the fuss and rush, carry on, but if you are looking for a change, stay tuned. This is going to be fun.