What’s Not to Like
Our local business publication runs a CEO Profile feature that always asks the question, “What is the one word that best describes you?” The C-level answers tend to be perfunctory: leader, focused, driven, passionate, curious. The usual suspects. In thinking about my own response to that question, I have to say the one word that comes to mind for me is grateful.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and fall is by far my favorite season. There is something very moody about autumn, especially when you live on the East Coast. It’s a good time to think deep thoughts. Appreciate what you have. Light a fire. Bake some pumpkin bread.
We can thank the Pilgrims for having the good sense to create a holiday that, unlike Christmas, requires only four basic ingredients: food, family, friends and football.
I’m grateful that I don’t have to cook the Thanksgiving dinner. That honor goes to my big sister Rodie who is much more qualified than I for this important annual ritual (I bring the can’t-lose-dessert).
But when you think about the original Thanksgiving menu, my sister is actually getting off pretty easy. She can comfortably work her magic inside a modern kitchen, not standing outside over a boiling cauldron and roasting pit in frigid New England.
The first Thanksgiving spread supposedly included seethed (boiled) lobster, cod and turkey; roasted goose, duck, and venison with mustard sauce; fricassee of Coney (Island?); stewed pumpkin; fruit and Holland cheese; topped off with dessert (brought by one of the lazy settlers), featuring Indian corn meal pudding with dried whortleberries and savory pudding of Hominy (a food made from kernels of corn which are soaked in an alkali solution of either lime or lye. An acquired taste for sure…).
There was no Calorie Control Council back then to spoil the Pilgrim’s belt-busting get together. Today we have to put up with relentless media stories warning us that the average American could consume as many as 4,500 calories at this holiday meal (which brings to mind the definition of an optimist: a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day).
I’m very grateful that I get to take the entire Thanksgiving week off from work. I do it every year. No big plans. No travel. Just a week to be with family and friends and celebrate my son’s birthday (he was conveniently born while I was on vacation).
When I return from this hiatus, I will be even more grateful that the people I work with will make me feel like I wasn’t missed a bit (everything’s under control, boss), that my clients will have taken some time off as well (it can wait ‘till next week), and that you, my readers, graciously spent a moment to check out my blog.
Happy Thanksgiving!
