let me explain further. there are a few reasons that i don't quite fit in to my little family of four (pre-husband family). first of all, they all have gorgeously thick, wavy/curly hair and i didn't even HAVE hair until i was two, and even though it is thicker than mom gives me credit for, it is super baby fine and straight as a board. so while my mom spends hours a day taming her mane, my dad has no hint of a receding hairline, and my brother literally needs a haircut every two weeks, i am like the little hairless chihuahua in the corner- shivering from cold. and although i am permanently scarred for life by the memory of sitting on the bathroom counter EVERY morning while my mom curled my hair for school and secured it with some gigantic bow perfectly coordinated to my outfit, i now appreciate my genetic anomaly hair, which i can throw in a ponytail without looking in a mirror, or secure into a bun with a pencil, or just wash and then let dry on the the way to work!
the other reason i am the "weird" one is all about food. my family and family gatherings, both immediate and extended REVOLVE around food and the preparation of it. i love to cook and try new things, but i have to admit, when mom starts prepping the dinner as we put away breakfast, it is sometimes a little too much for me. the smell of a roast being browned at 9:30 am just makes my stomach turn. as i said before, my little brother is a fabulous chef that graduated at the top of his class from culinary school and received several awards. he is amazing! i am far more tentative about food. i have always hated anything orange; carrots, sweet potatoes, anything orange flavored or glazed with orange, cheetos, orange soda...
i also HATE nuts. they make me cringe. the best way i can explain it is that if i eat one it feels like the inside of my teeth start to itch. mom is famous for putting them in everything good- like brownies and cookies and dips and on vegetables so even if i try to pick around them, i inevitably get that terrible teeth itch feeling when one escapes my careful hunting. so i long ago gave up on eating any holiday goodies at all. my food hatred also extends to anything that is all mixed up and cooked together with eggs- like, breakfast casseroles. i love bacon, and cheese and eggs, but if you blend them all up and cook them together it makes me want to vomit. i know that this doesn't make any sense, but i just cant handle it. so casseroles in general are usually out for me, although i have learned to like squash casserole over the years, and can probably stomach a few bites of spinach quiche without having a panic attack. i have gotten a LOT better over the years. i used to eat everything out of bowls because i hated when the juices touched each other and i was even a vegetarian for a while, which elicited disgusted responses from my family that were probably equivalent to if i decided not to shower for a year. i also love seafood now, which i spent most of my childhood avoiding- and quickly learned to smell everything that was put on my plate and described as "chicken". still, my family thinks that my food preferences are HORRIFYING. you might as well tell them you don't believe in America or Santa Claus.
mom has FINALLY (i'm 27) come to accept some of my food preferences and on Christmas morning she makes me a little corner of the monkey bread without nuts and eventually gave up on forcing me to eat sweet potatoes or carrots. (sitting at the table and gagging repeatedly when forced to try carrots glazed in orange juice, which is basically the worst combination of foods i can EVER imagine, worked pretty well since i can be overly dramatic when the situation calls for it) even though i still get the occasional eye roll from my family about my eating preferences, i have just learned to make things that i DO like for the holidays.
so while they get all giddy about eating disgusting things like lamb covered with rosemary (eww and eww) and sweet potatoes cooked for hours in cinnamon (eww) and brown sugar and of course topped with pecans (shiver), i look forward to contributing to the Thanksgiving meal in my own way. this year, i am making my customary favorite, green bean casserole- there's just something heavenly about something made with three simple ingredients- and even though my fancy schmancy chef brother scoffs at my delight over onions that come out of a can, he always still eats it, when he thinks i'm not looking. over the years, my sweet aunt sometimes sends me gently worded e-mails about possible "additions" to the green bean casserole, like chinese vegetables, or pearl onions, or mixing the toppings up, and even though i know that she has the best of intentions and has the amazing cook gene, like most of my family, i just cannot budge on that one. ya know, if it ain't broke...
this year i am also making Ryan's mom's recipe for squash casserole- which I LOVE and so does he. since he won't be with his family this year for the meal and there surely won't be any left by the time we get to the in-laws house for the weekend, i thought it would be nice to give him a taste of home. it's harder than people realize to be plucked from your family traditions and get used to new ones when you get married, so i always try to do something special for him- and not so selflessly- that squash casserole is amazing. even though it has vegetables and cheese and eggs all cooked together, there's something about the ratio of all the ingredients that doesn't set off my "mixed up together" food alarm. and i could eat squash every day of the year so it gets extra points for yummy-ness!
the last thing i am making this year is a new addition to the family's traditional menu. each person has a few dishes they are famous for and are pretty much required to bring every year, but i added this one to my list since the morning of thanksgiving starts when everyone arrives with several breakfast casseroles strewn about and some kind of sketchy dead animal sausages that Landon procured from a local farm and then cured himself (props for buying local), i just can't ever trust that what they tell me about the ingredients will be true- therefore better to avoid all-together. for example, i would say something like, "dad, what kind of sausage is this?" and he would casually reply, "oh just regular pork sausage that landon made from a pig he bought and had butchered up in north GA from an organic farm" (thats a totally normal response in my family) and then AFTER i sniffed it and then took a bite, he would giggle and say "actually that was alligator/goat brain sausage that i had overnighted from louisiana from a 96 year old swamp farmer that raises his own goats to feed to the alligators and his wife harvests the seasonings and then marinates them for three years in mason jars in their backyard". im serious- responses like these would not surprise me. i am totally ok with trying new things- and all for supporting small farmers, but sometimes, i just want some plain old carolina pride sausage from publix- is that too much to ask?? every meal does not have to be an adventure for me in order to be satisfying. so i just decided to make some cinnamon rolls last year from a recipe i found from (don't tell my family!) sandra lee's semi-homemade show on food network. they absolutely LOVED them, and i secretly basked in their success even though i didn't mill my own flour to make them or import the sugar from a farm in puerto rico... so they are back on the menu again. even though mom mentioned how delicious they would be with a crushed pecan topping... ugh.
all food issues aside, the thing i look forward to most is the time spent with family. watching everyone gather in the kitchen and cook together all day and share recipes and critiques of foods and wines and restaurants and just talk about life. my family for the most part all have a funny sense of humor. you will get made fun of and prodded for information since we are all nosy, and your thoughts about how cumin can be used as a marinade for whatever will be thoroughly discussed. your dog training methods will be picked apart and i will get ribbed for not believing in "spanking" dogs while house training while meanwhile, my moms cavapoo is off peeing on a rug somewhere even though her method is "clearly" superior... we will talk about everyone's latest interior design choices, and whisper about some cousin's bad wardrobe choice etc. and there will be unceasing chatter and laughter and a beautiful prayer and lots to be thankful for.
things i'm thankful for this year:
a family that's never dull and full of love
my four legged children and their health and affection
the little barn/farm that i love and hope to never have to live without
the chance to live in a place where i am safe and comfortable
living in a country where i get to be picky about food because there's plenty of it
a great job and the chance to go to school as well
a husband that i love and look forward to making squash casserole for every year
getting to be part of a family that supports and encourages you to do your best in whatever you do
the generosity of others, both financial and otherwise
traditions both new and old
and lots more...
Happy Thanksgiving!
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