#85 Families Food And Fights

Nov 25, 2024

Thanksgiving Maelstrom

Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday.

Whatever its origins, for many families it has evolved into this weird annual reunion centered around food, in some cases football, and, if you believe all the movies and sitcoms, intense family drama.

I am very lucky. I have never had to navigate a truly dramatic family Thanksgiving.

Some little mishaps. Some minor squabbles. Some truly weird food.

But no big family fights.

But there is a big storm brewing. And it’s about to hit dining rooms all over the country.

I’m not sure we have had this many families divided by politics since the Vietnam era.

I don’t know what to tell you if you are about to wade into the maelstrom other than to hope that you can try to make this year more about the food and the family than the fights.

We are all navigating this together. I’ll be here for you on the flip side if you need to vent.

Food Help

You might not be making the brussels sprouts with bacon but I imagine some kind of pie is on your thanksgiving menu. If, like me, you have struggled with homemade pie crust (and resorted to store bought roll-out crusts for way too many years) help is on the way.

Years ago, my pie crust woes were put to bed for good when I inherited a copy of the old 1950’s version of the Betty Crocker cookbook. I have written extensively about my liberation from Martha Stewart’s crust (it was always tough and dry) and an embrace of the pastry wisdom of the folks at Betty Crocker inc. (always tender but sometimes hard to get out of the pan in one piece.) I then took the BC version and made a few of my own tweaks so that we land somewhere in the middle for people who like butter but want a nice flaky tender crust and a wedge that won’t collapse into a pile of rubble while serving.

You can find both recipes and a rundown of BC apple pies at the link here.

Even if you are making pumpkin or pecan or any other kind of pie, these recipes can take a lot of stress out of your process and help you make the kind of delicious pies your friends and family will rave about.

THANK YOU

I was remiss last week - I forgot to thank all of you who made donations via my “tip jar”. I am humbled by your generosity and will continue to strive to bring my best to you every week.

The Universe Is Weird

Since the election I made a decision to dial way back on my news consumption. This has meant filling my TV time with other things and, ironically, in my attempt to escape the news, I encountered the following dialogue from an episode of “Poker Face”:

Natalie: “Why do you listen to that stuff?”

Charlie: “Why do I listen to the news?”

Natalie: “Yeah. What's the point? You can't do anything about it. Every day you're mad about something you can't do anything about. We’re just better off with music, don't ya think?”

It does not escape my notice that when I first watched this scene I identified with Charlie while now I am becoming Natalie.

Happy Music

If, like Natalie, you need some music here is a video of one of my tunes.

Titled “Vinnie Goes To Washington” it is one of the first things I ever wrote and brings me joy every time I play it. I hope it brings you joy to hear it. (As usual, if you are reading this in email, the video will open using your web browser.)

Food Pantries

This is a very old strip from The Brilliant Mind Of Edison Lee. (You can tell it’s very old because the characters look really different.)

I came across it the other day and it reminded me that one year we took our kids down to the local grocery store, gave them each a set amount to spend and a calculator, and challenged them to see how much food for the pantry they could each buy. To the winner would go a homemade apple pie. (They will fight each other to the death for one of my apple pies - see recipe link above.)

It was interesting to see the choices they made - and how much they learned from me over the years when it came to stretching a dollar. While the oldest, had the largest number of items by far - 158 - the youngest easily made the most nutritious choices and the middle one probably won the most points for food homeless kids would like most to eat.

My mother happened to be visiting and joined in by purchasing and donating 25 can openers - she was working at her local food pantry at the time and said they never have enough can openers. Which is something I never even thought about.

With everything else going on it’s easy to lose sight of the ways in which we can focus on our local community and make a big difference. Please, if you are in a position to do so, consider supporting your local food bank.

Holiday Gifting!

Gift giving season is right around the corner!

These books make great holiday gifts!

Buy Books

One Last Link

There are some truly hilarious Thanksgiving scenes from the world of TV and Cinema and several of my favorites are in an episode of “Mad About You” called “Giblets For Murray”.

I tried to put a link here to a small clip but it was posted on FaceBook so that turned out to be a bust.

But the whole episode is here on YouTube (click the image)

It’s also streaming on the Roku channel.

This button will take you to my PayPal tip jar. It is tied to my old Typepad “Anne And God” page (look for the button in the left hand sidebar) because I cannot use the Substack tip jar.

Substack only has a relationship with Stripe as a payment gateway and I recently had to close my Stripe account after they failed to adequately protect me from credit card fraud generated by identity thieves in Australia (a whole long story) so I have to do things in this roundabout way.

Thank you for reading and for your support.

Tip Jar

Thank You

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Keep The Messages Coming!

A big “thank you” to all of you who have messaged me commented or hit “like” after reading my poems and commentary!

I appreciate the feedback and knowing how often I have struck a chord with your lives.

Anne The Passive Aggressive Poet

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