Family and particularly mothers were on my mind while I walked one day listening to my book way back before Thanksgiving. Something in the book made me think of my mom. I had a great idea about something to write here. I sat, hours later, and couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. That may be why the blog has been idle. Those great, but fleeting, ideas never get from the brain to the computer. It takes a long period of quiet solitude for me to think and develop a thought. Life, lately, has not been full of quiet solitude. Not really complaining though.
As much as I can recall, the great thoughts had to do with baking, family recipes, and passing on things from generation to generation. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the time of year we pull out those recipes from our mothers, mothers-in-law, fathers...if they were the cooking types, and maybe even our grandmothers if we are lucky enough. I have my mother-in-law's stuffing recipe, my mother and mother-in-law's cookie recipes for Christmas and a few of each family's traditional dishes for the holidays. Our traditional family meal became a hybrid of both our family traditions melded together with an addition or two to make our own family tradition.
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| A new experience this year, a turducken! Our friend's family tradition! |
Cooking a turkey will always and forever remind me of my father and the first Thanksgiving I, as a young wife and mother, hosted a joint Thanksgiving meal for our families. I asked my dad to help carve the turkey, as it was his expertise. Well...humiliation upon humiliation, he called me into the kitchen to point out, "You are supposed to take the giblets, OUT of the turkey before you bake it!". I thought I had... but did not know there were 2 cavities with bags of "goodies" stuffed in them. Every single Thanksgiving from then on, my dad...chuckling, asked me if I took the giblets out of my turkey. I never lived that one down!
Through the years, we have added our own flavor to the holiday meals. My kids use some of our family favorites at their meals. I love when they call for the Breakfast casserole recipe, Mimi's Cut-out cookie recipe, the spinach Madeline recipe, and the monkey bread recipe. Now, about 100 versions of each can be found on the internet. I still love pulling out the vanilla-stained cookie recipe card or turning the page to the butter splattered spinach Madeline recipe in the original River Roads cookbook. I am sure that making something from a much-loved written recipe card will be much superior to one found on a random website. Call me old fashioned!
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| The "much loved" collection of our holiday "go to" recipes! |
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