Food, Glorious Food

            Did you know that I’m so food obsessed I read cookbooks like they’re novels, and obsessively trawl Chowhound and Yelp before, during and after traveling in order to discover the best of the best while I’m away from home?

Did you know that I’m considered unnecessarily food crazed, here in West Hartford, CT, where palates are more Puritan-centric than not?

Or that eating at nearby restaurants turns me more cold than hot (except for Bricco’s, the only place I return to over and over)?

Or that I feel the need to stand at the stove and stir up my Jane Brody-influenced 10-minute oatmeal with milk (and a half an apple, later sprinkled with roasted, unsalted sunflower seeds and a splash of agave syrup), while also cooking up what to make for dinner?

Or that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, probably because it’s the only holiday my secular, Jewish family celebrated?

Or that its menu sounded like the lyrics of a song, at least to me?

Roast turkey with Pepperidge Farm stuffing

Giblet gravy made from scratch

Homemade cranberry sauce from the recipe on the back of the Ocean Spray bag 
Southern sweet potato pudding baked with marshmallows on top

Tossed salad with homemade Italian dressing

Fresh, steamed green beans

A small bowl of Jumbo canned, pitted black olives

Apple crisp from the Settlement Cookbook

And a big Panama with a purple hatband.

Over the years, I’ve tinkered (Brussel sprouts, creamed baby onions and peas, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, lemon squares, mashed potatoes, and one year lasagna instead of turkey – which my son still hasn’t forgiven me for), but there’s no need, because my family’s old timey, totally American-centric menu is so solidly engraved inside me that it’s a relief to let down my foodie guard and stir up the past. 
       I know they say you can’t go home again, but I do, every November 26^th (except for the year my husband and I went to St. Thomas to follow the UConn Huskies’ Thanksgiving Tournament, leaving our adult kids to fend for themselves).

                Oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh.