Thanksgiving Traditions

It never fails, every Wednesday before Thanksgiving day, you will find me in the kitchen late at night baking the pumpkin pies. Always two, crust first and filled with the pumpkin pie filling on the back of the can of Libby's pumpkin. These pies look homemade, from the imperfect zigzags of the pastry to the small fissures in the center of the custard. For certain, this is not haute cuisine, but it is the kind of nostalgic cooking on which traditions are based.

Thanksgiving is, perhaps, the most traditional of the food holidays, marked by tables laden with recipes handed down through generations. The menu rarely, if ever, changes.

This year, like nearly every other, the cook in me wanted to tweak some of the recipes - add ginger to the cranberry relish, omit the marshmallows on the sweet potatoes (I admit, I like them...) or try some exciting new dish from Gourmet Magazine. In the end, we succumb to the cries of horror from our families and friends, shocked that we would dare change the sacred feast.

After the flurry of activity during the last 20 minutes before the meal is served, we finally sit down to the table with a glass of wine and a ridiculously overfilled plate. At that moment, I have to admit, I am very glad that everything is as it should be - unchanging, comforting and familiar.

Happy Thanksgiving.