Traditional Food

Last night I made meatloaf using Grandma's recipe, plus baked buttercup squash (I'm really excited about squash right now) and steamed green beans tossed with olive oil and zest from those Meyer lemons you and Dad sent me. The lemons are wonderful! I'm going to make lemon meringue pie with some later today.

We're having Thanksgiving on Friday with Lawson's family, including a lot of older extended family -- a very conservative, unsmiling bunch who ignore us for the most part, though there are some fun younger cousins. Like last year, Lawson and I have been delegated the task of preparing everything but the turkey and dessert. Right now we're in the middle of menu negotiations. I would happily forgo stuffing and white potatoes and such, but we have to keep it pretty traditional.

So far we've decided on: mashed sweet potatoes (butter, orange zest, rum); some kind of stuffing with pecans and sausage; cranberry-orange relish (I can't have Thanksgiving without it...don't know if anyone else likes it); scalloped potatoes; and collards cooked for many hours with a ham hock. We want to make green beans...Lawson was looking at a green bean casserole recipe with added sausage, and I suggested we find a simpler, fresher recipe, but he didn't think that would fly. So we're still working on that one. I just want one dish without cream, butter, sugar, or meat.

I think cooking and eating this meal will break me out of the traditional American food phase I've been in lately. I didn't grow up eating things like meatloaf and pot roast very often -- I remember some Kraft dinner and hamburger hash early on, but for the most part you always cooked homemade breads and garden vegetables and wonderful light ethnic foods. Also, being a vegetarian from ages 11 to 25 meant I never ate things like sloppy joes or corn dogs. I think it's been partly living in the South, partly eating meat again, and partly curiosity, but for the last year I've been making and eating very classic American foods. Lawson excels at making Thai and Vietnamese and Chinese and Indian stuff, so I've been making pies and hamburgers. But after tomorrow's looming cholesterolfest I will probably be done with traditional foods for a while.