Thanksgiving

I have a contentious relationship with time. It's always leaving me behind, and I'm always playing catch-up with it. In that spirit, I'm finally ready to write my Thanksgiving post.

Yes, I know Thanksgiving was two days ago. It was noisy, crowded, complicated, emotional, hectic, and highly aromatic. It was also delicious. We brined the turkey using Alton Brown's recipe, with amazing results, though my husband and I have already decided on the ways in which we'll alter the recipe for next year. (To us, a recipe is more than a set of directions. It's the beginning of a journey.)

Because our extended family is in the Midwest, we've had to create our Thanksgiving crowd by supplementing our meager numbers with friends. After decades of doing this, we've come up with a multi-family, multi-racial, multi-ethnic feast which begins with every single feaster having the floor to give their own special thanks. This can take as long as fifteen minutes, but this year there was a short, sweet consensus view: we are thankful for Barack Obama! (There was a minor contingent which was also grateful for turkey, dressing, pie, and Australian white wines.)

So. Here's hoping everyone in America had a happy, or at least a hopeful, Thanksgiving. We did.