Thanksgiving Prep

Three days until Thanksgiving Day.  I’m into preparation mode.  Actually I have been thinking about it for a while now but now I need to actually start the work.  Plan the menu, make my shopping list and then go shopping.

I usually have Thanksgiving with my older brother, Ted, and a bunch of his friends. My friends all have family to go to even though I ask them each year anyway.  Sort of like “what are your plans for Thanksgiving?” That way, if they have plans, I’m just being friendly.  If they don’t have plans, I can invite them. But all of them have family to go to and are all set.  So I make dinner for Ted and his friends.  Which is fine.  I love to cook and why should it just be Ted and I.  Our siblings have families of their own, not to mention live in different states, so they can’t come.  It is my wish, someday, that we have a family reunion around some holiday.  Either Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, 4^th of July or something like that.  Maybe someday.

Back to the prep work.  We generally have the same menu every year although each year I try to change something just to make it interesting not only for those who are eating but for the cook. So far, all the new recipes I have suggested, my brother has turned down.  I mostly just change the vegetable but we aren’t agreeing on what to do.  I may go back to a tried and true favorite, like brussels sprouts or broccoli, but maybe I can find something different that we can both agree on.

One thing we do agree on is that we provide the whole meal.  I don’t know if it’s a New England thing or signs of the times or what but people keep insisting on bringing something.  A salad, vegetable, appetizer or pie.  Nice of them to offer but I have the whole menu planned out and everything is set and balanced.  I go to all the effort of planning it and then someone walks in with a cheese platter and then what am I supposed to do with the appetizers I have prepared?  Or they walk in with a salad.  That isn’t part of the menu.  But do I tell them to leave it in the car?  That would be ungracious.  Can’t do that.

Then there is the pie issue. I like pie. Not to brag but I make really good pie.  REALLY good pie.  So I go to the effort of making two pies, from scratch.  An apple and a pumpkin.  Then someone walks in the door with a store bought pie.  First of all, nothing at all like my pie.  Secondly, really insulting.  Like some store bought pie would be better than my homemade pie.

After a few years of struggling with this, my brother and I have said, when inviting people, “don’t bring anything…please”.  He and I were discussing this last night and trying to think of a good example.  One example I had a few years ago was, when I was explaining the quandary to a friend, that if you are invited to the White House, would you show up with a dish to share?  Almost everyone on the planet would say “no, of course not”.  So it’s a great example.  Of course my friend said she would.  She feels she would show up at the White House and hand Mrs. Obama a covered casserole before a formal dinner.  Either she was kidding and I didn’t pick up on it or, well, she really doesn’t get it.

Another example that is good is that “Everybody Loves Raymond” episode where Debra prepares a Thanksgiving dinner with fish as the main course. And Marie shows up with a turkey and all the trimmings.  DEEPLY insulting.  And most everyone who saw that episode got it and felt bad for Debra.  Except my friend who probably said “what…nice of Marie to do that wasn’t it?”.

Sometimes I really wonder about people…

More on Thanksgiving as the week progresses.