Saturday, October 9, 2010

My mom's cooking...

So as we get closer to the holiday season (in my mind being Christmas) I start to get more and more excited about the culinary experience. More precisely, my mom starts cooking epic meals. This weekend will mark Thanksgiving, which traditionally for me is the time when I eat painful amounts of turkey, stuffing, gravy and root vegetables followed by massive amounts of pumpkin pie.

Granted, this year will be an adjustment as I can't consume anything made with butter/margarine/milk which means that most of the deserts will likely be a no-go. That being said, I should be able to gorge on the dinner portions which is very exciting.

I was thinking earlier in the week that literally I don't know that I've ever missed a thanksgiving dinner with my mom. As a child of divorce, Christmas was somewhat all over the map (up until I hit mid-teens and said "screw this" and spent every subsequent Christmas with my mom's parents) but Thanksgiving was a constant.

My mom is epic at the classic meals, truly epic. Where she's an odd cook is that she's what I term an "experimental cook". That is, from my teens up my mom started collecting massive numbers of cook books. She has at least two full bookshelves top-to-bottom with her regular ones alone. When Kevin and I were living at Mom's, at least a couple meals a week would be random concoctions of things she wanted to try. Some were amazing, some were horrible. Pickled ginger beets for me were not good. As the years have progressed she's got more efficient at picking good recipes (or in rescuing them) to the extent that she's widely regarded as Ms Potluck - she can attend weekly potlucks and in every week have a different random meal that works well. It's ridiculous, all things concerned, but impressive in its own right. Moral of the story: If you're passionate about something and pursue it with all your heart, you will succeed at anything.

In the meantime, I'm salivating as I await Thanksgiving Dinner and am truly thankful for the culinary experience.

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