When I was fresh out of college and living in my first apartment, I had big dreams for myself of how glamorous and sophisticated my adulthood would eventually be. This was never more evident than in the fact that I purchased a subscription to Southern Living magazine even on my very limited new career girl budget.
I would look forward to that magazine arriving in the mail each month and spend hours perusing the pages, turning down corners of pages with recipes and decor that seemed especially inspirational and dreaming of the day that I would perform these same feats of decorating and culinary greatness in my own home.
Which is why it really seemed like a low when I found myself at age forty-five making Thanksgiving dessert on top of my washer and dryer.
Oh sure. It looks glamorous and ripped straight from the pages of Southern Living, what with those Hefty trash bags and styrofoam cups in the photo. But the truth is I feel like it represents the evolution of a marriage. You start off all starry-eyed and grateful that your future mother-in-law has entrusted you with a precious family recipe and, twenty years later, you begin to wonder if she shared that recipe so that you could experience the same nightmare she has for the past fifty years which involves the challenge to find ladyfingers at the grocery store two days before Thanksgiving. Granted, my mother-in-law is much more organized than I am and probably has the forethought to buy ladyfingers much earlier than two days before Thanksgiving and freeze them until they are needed. But almost twenty years of marriage has taught me nothing and I still frantically search for ladyfingers at the last minute every year, which inevitably requires a trip to at least three different grocery stores and the loss of the delicate thread of sanity I have left. You want to know what the seventh circle of hell looks like? Just visit the Central Market parking lot the day before Thanksgiving.
And in case you were wondering, I am not making a Rachel Greene trifle with jam, custard, beef and peas. It’s chocolate ice box pudding and it is truly delicious even though it requires the dreaded mission impossible for ladyfingers.
We did have a very nice Thanksgiving with my sister and her family at Bops and Mimi’s house. In years past we have had a Turducken, but this year we opted for the lesser known Turporken. If you are a wordsmith, then you might have deduced that this version involves pork instead of duck. It was delicious but we all agreed we weren’t sure there was actually any pork involved. It just looked like a lot of turkey to me and I find turkey to be the most overrated of all the meats.
But, let’s be honest, Thanksgiving is really about the carbs. The dressing, the broccoli rice casserole, the sweet potatoes, and the dinner rolls. I put a few asparagus on my plate because it made me feel better about myself, but they were the only thing left at the end of the meal. A good Thanksgiving plate is really meant to be mainly beige/yellow in color with the only splash of color coming from the cranberry sauce. It’s how the Pilgrims and Indians meant for it to be.
After lunch I noticed Caroline lying on the couch next to Mimi and Bops and it was too sweet of a moment to not capture. It made me realize these are the days I’ll look back and miss someday. These three have been as close as can be since the day Caroline was born and time hasn’t changed that even though life moves a little faster and keeps us busier as she gets older.
And then I tried to get a nice picture of these two.
Successful as always.
And one of the three of us.
Slightly better but only because I threatened them both with bodily harm.
Eventually we headed home and were all in our pajamas by 5:30 p.m. which is really the best way to spend Thanksgiving night because stretchy pants.
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are recovering from all the carbs and the pies and the grocery store parking lots.