Thanksgiving can and has been a pain in the arse. You end up jumping through hoops trying to make everything crantastic, exotic, and mind-blowing. How can the stuffing usurp the previous years, what cartwheels can we do with the turkey, how many artisanal ingredients can we weave together to fabricate the fine cloth of an ideal Thanksgiving? The answer is actually quite individualistic, but at the end of the day Thanksgiving is about giving thanks and enjoying the time with those around you. And that is what we forget. The holiday centered around food usually comes to a crashing halt when the dishes pile up, or the exotic pumpkin pie does not set, or the heritage bird does not arrive in time to roast it.
This year we took the time to care about the seemingly ordinary ingredients, and it truly paid off. Sure, we took the time to make a turkey roulade, yet that allowed us to roast a whole turkey in less than an hour. We used cranberries and horseradish, button mushrooms and sweet potatoes. Even our pumpkin pie was made without pie spices. And what is great is our guests tasted the difference. They were not overwhelmed with the complexities of the food; rather, they were overwhelmed with the incredible tastes of the ordinary.
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