Monday, November 26, 2012

The ur-American Holiday

Thanksgiving is the truly American holiday.  Forget the Pilgrims and the Indians--I'd rather recall the times in the 1930s when people were thankful first for their emergence from the Depression and then World War II. Those times were highlighted for the holiday with the 1936 Thanksgiving proclamation of Connecticut Governor Wilbur L. Cross (yes, I know you thought he was a parkway) and FDR's in 1944.

As for the day and the dinner, I opt for the traditional menu.  The wonderful smell of a turkey roasting filled the house and there were plain roasted sweets and garlic mashed along with root vegetables and my daughter's brussels sprouts concoction (there always has to be a brussels sprout concoction--but this one was good) and her cranberry-orange sauce, with our traditional add-on, a nice salad, followed of course by the pumpkin pie (mine) and the apple pie (Vanessa's) and the pumpkin cheesecake (courtesy of Judyt Mandel).

This year we have a lot for which to be thankful.  I could start with the election and then the happy chance that kept us on the edge of the Hurricane zone a few weeks ago, but most of all, Eileen was discharged from Hopkins Thursday morning so was here to enjoy the day with all of us. And she's recovering, day by day, with her usual perseverance.

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