Monday, November 29, 2010

Thanksgiving, just why do we cook, bake and roast so much food?

I finally had a few minutes to catch up on my mail after the holiday.  Along with the usual requests for donations, (are you all getting many of them?), a couple of magazines were there. I started with Cooking Light.  There's a cheesecake on the cover and I wanted to see how they made it "light".  I paged through the magazine, and for some reason,  stopped at the editor's page.  I think the fact that the editor is a man attracted me to the page. 
The editor had not written the usual rundown on the magazine's content, but turned the page over to a blogger's story.  Kelli Pryor and her husband adopted two baby girls in China 10years ago.  She writes about that day, and how four people became a family.  I was pulled in by this story.  The theme was food.   I thought about the last three weeks of cutting, chopping, baking, roasting, blending, mixing, shopping and planning Thanksgiving.  I worked 3-12mid, then got up early each morning to start another cupcake, vegetable, stuffing preparation, running to the store.  I was not unique, everyone had the same story. When I got to work, we were asking each other,   "What did you make today?", "What's your menu?", "How big is your turkey?", the conversations were all the same, whether I was on the phone with my sister or cousin or at work. 
We loved talking about recipes and how long to roast a turkey.  Some remembered special dishes and others could not remember if their grandmothers stuffed the turkey.  This editorial that I read the day after Thanksgiving gave me "more food" for thought.  The story revolved around the day the babies were adopted.  Their new mother had the two babies in the room and they were crying, one on each of her knees.  She tried singing to them, talking to them, bouncing them on her knees.  They wailed broken heartedly.  When her husband returned to the room, he found all three of his new family crying.  He rolled a cart from room service through the door and stationed it between the beds.  He took one of the babies on his knee, handed his wife chopsticks, took a set for himself and uncovered an array of noodles, egg custard and greens.  They fed the babies and themselves.  At that point, the babies settled down and one laughed.  They had discovered the oldest, common bond, food.  So with this story, I realized why we cook the meals at the holidays and throughout our lives.  It's the bonding that we look forward to.  The family gathered around the table, as our first ancestors, the hunters and gatherers,  rounded the fire while the meat browned.  It's the love for each other that makes the kitchen the most important room in the home.  It's wanting to feed those we love when we can't give them anything else.  It's not what we made, it was the fact that it brought together families and that's what it's all about.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Laura the cheerleader...

Haven't been here in a while.  There are a few things I want to do with my blog, but still haven't figured out how to.
Anyway, went to a dance and cheerleader competition yesterday. It was in Boston and many towns were represented. 
What impressed me the most was the many young kids involved in the competition. It was good to see so many teens, 'tweens, college students, high school students, grade school kids, and others partaking in and organizing the competition.  I say this because so often we hear about the negative activities of kids.  But here was over a thousand young people involved in good, clean fun.  My heart danced with them.  The music was great and the atmosphere was upbeat and invigorating.  
My granddaughter was in the cheerleading competition.  She waited a long time to perform, and when it was her time to show her best, I could see something was wrong.  We were high in the bleachers looking down on the activities.  We could see her crying and Jennifer was making hand motions to me and I could read them perfectly.  "Laura's going to throw up!".  She went off to the side for a brief moment, then returned to her place in line.  She was still crying, but managed to do the cheer.  After the cheer, she looked like she recovered and we attributed her feeling of nausea to a nervous stomach.  She slept on the way home and seemed to be ok.
Later in the evening, I called to see how every one had recovered from the long and busy morning.  Laura had a temp of 102.  She was sick and complaining of a sore throat.
I guess she was trying to say that earlier.  She felt better as the night wore on, and by this morning, her temp was 99.