Looking ahead at this week, it would make perfect and predictable sense for me to contribute yet another Thanksgiving-themed piece to the steaming, teeming masses already out there. However, I will not.
I am not being obstinate. I am moving. After five+ years in the same tiny (albeit well-appointed) San Francisco apartment, my husband and I are relocating for the suburbs where he can have a five-minute bike ride to work and I can have a larger-than-life kitchen while ferreting out fresh food finds. So, taking advantage of the 8 days off Stanford gives their professors, we are talking boxes and bubble-wrap, not turkey.
I'll tell you something, it's a singular feeling to be eschewing all things yam and cranberry, while all around me discussions of brining, side dishes, and three kinds of stuffing abound. For a San Francisco foodie, it's partly lonely not to be spending the next four days plotting out how to shop, cook, serve, and digest a massive feast, but mostly, it's rather liberating.
There are few times when a happy cook can be made to feel more inadequate than around the holidays when each fish tale of festal feed becomes more elaborate than the next. I would even venture to say that Thanksgiving is more daunting than Christmas because everyone is making the same general things: potatoes (of a sort), cranberries (in some manner), side dishes (varied but consistent), stuffing (too many arguments to list) and a big ass bird (non-negotiable). How will yours stack up? And what obscenely creative measures will you take in dealing with the resulting leftovers?
The questions swirl around the blogosphere, "Is the turkey heritage?"