Thanksgiving 2010

We had dinner yesterday at my sister's house. Her youngest daughter, Jennifer, and her family, were all there as were James and Claudia - friends of Linda and Eddie.
There was too much food and not enough people, as usual. It seems like no matter how many people there are, there is far too much food for the event. I wonder if anyone ever truly gets the proportions right... besides people who cook by a ruler or something. You know, the kind who figure out that if the label says "1/2 pound per person", then they're going to buy just enough so that every person gets no more than the 1/2 pound that should be alloted to them. I see recipes that recommend a ratio of 1 potato per person for mashed potatoes. Please! Those people can't be from the South, nor have they ever eaten mashed potatoes prepared 'southern style'. One potato wouldn't have done nothing but tease them! Regardless, we follwed no rules and there was more than enough for everyone. Jennifer said we ought to invite 10 more people to dinner after we'd finished, and then we'd invite another 10, and by then we'd have made a pretty good dent in the food.
We had a very traditional dinner- Roasted turkey, baked ham, dressing, peas -n- dumplings, green beans with potatoes, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, sweet potatoe souffle, rolls, cranberry sauce, cran-apple sauce, and baked macaroni and cheese. Desserts were a pumpkin pie, a pumpkin cheesecake with praline pecan crust, real banana pudding, coconut cake and a chocolate eclair pie that Jennifer made. Holy cow was it good!!!

There's something to be said about the old fashioned Thanksgiving dinners... People put love into the things they cooked and you could honestly taste it in every bite. I suppose people might enjoy eating at a restaurant on Thanksgiving - but not me. Hopefully I will always have dinner with my family, in a house where it's still warm from baking a turkey all night, or a ham, and where you walk in and smell the cinnamon and cloves from the sweet potatoe pies and souffles, and where the cooks are all proud and ready to share a recipe, and where you're dining with people who love you and people that you love. I think THAT was the real seasoning in the Thanksgiving dishes we had yesterday.