One of America's favorite holidays is fast approaching this week! Can you guess what it is? I'll give you a hint; it involves lots and lots of food.
If you guessed Thanksgiving, you got it right!
People look forward to Thanksgiving for a variety of reasons; a time to gather together with family members you haven't seen most of the year, enjoying games, conversations and, oftentimes, a football game. But the star of the whole holiday is sitting on the dining room table; dinner.
For my family, our Thanksgiving dinner consisted mostly of turkey and ham, collard greens with ham hocks and neckbones, white rice, green beans, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, chitterlings (yuck), some type of cake, black-eyed peas, black-eyed peas, mashed potatoes, potato salad...probably a lot more food that I can't think of right now.
Now, let's be fair: Thanksgiving would be a great time to bring out some new recipes or try to recreate a unique twist on some old classics. But let's give you a fair warning; this is not the time to try anything new that you haven't tested on your friends and family before! We are ready for our favorite staples (I know I can't wait for my macaroni and cheese to come out the oven, so don't bring me any mac and cheese with vegetables in it), so please, if you've never tried the recipe before, don't try it now.
But also, make Thanksgiving a fun adventure and bonding time with your family and friends. Invite people into the kitchen and into the preparation stages. Let them get involved and feel like a part of the process, feel connected to the food. Have the kids snap and pass the peas like we used to do. Share recipes with the teenagers so they will learn to stand on their own two feet later. Swap stories with the elders sitting around the table as they cook the greens and put their foot (not literally I hope) into the pies and cakes. Make this a family affair.
We about the love of Thanksgiving, the ultimate feast for food lovers!
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