A Day In The Life

Thanksgiving is fast approaching here in the United States, magazines filled with recipes and many newspapers articles and the internet bemoaning the opening of stores on Thanksgiving day at 6PM, rather than waiting until “Black Friday” to open their doors.

Growing up we always had “traditional” family gatherings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. We alternated years between our home and my Aunt and Uncle’s. As we grew older and both my parents and my aunt and uncle divorced it became a smaller event, but we still made the effort to get together. Then some of us moved too far to travel, and once again the crowd changed and the traditions slipped away. For many years now my husband and I spend the day at home together, and that has become the new “tradition.” This year a neighbor of ours is getting a group of people together for a “Vegan Pot Luck Thanksgiving Brunch” from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, leaving time for people to go wherever they may be going for Thanksgiving “dinner.” It should prove to be an interesting time and certainly something different! My contribution will be a Gluten Free Cranberry Apple Crisp.

Looking through the recipes in a newspaper today I came upon one for mashed potatoes and was immediately transported back in time to my childhood kitchen where my father was always in charge of the mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. His secret ingredient that made them so light and fluffy and amazing? Mayonnaise. He would add in a few tablespoons and whip the potatoes like crazy by hand. I hadn’t thought of that in years and smiled at the memory. Happy to remember, though feeling a twinge of melancholy knowing the Thanksgivings of my adult years no longer held those same traditions but for the occasional gathering here and there. Life moves on.