Don't Mess with Tradition

At our family gatherings there are certain dishes that are traditional to eat. At the Parke Family Christmas parties it is always dessert- Granny Parke's Pineapple Fluff and Peanut Brittle Dessert. The second takes a little getting used to, the first, if made right (read- not made by me), is a little scoop of heaven. The rest of the meal can change yearly, but dessert should remain the same. It just isn't Christmas with out ingesting calories in those forms.

On my side of the family, the traditional dishes debut at Thanksgiving and make an encore appearance for Christmas dinner. The only problem is we have 2 Thanksgiving dinners by celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving in October and American Thanksgiving in November, so by the time we have Christmas dinner in December, I am ready to retire the Green Bean Casserole and Sweet Potato Casserole recipes' for another 9 months.

Except this year.

I made the traditional dishes for our Canadian Thanksgiving that we shared with friends and I brought home almost a full pan of each....which I ate a portion of for lunch... for the next week.

I'll tell you that leftovers are good, but not that good. Bleck!

By the time that planning our American Thanksgiving dinner came around I didn't even want to think about green beans, sweet potatoes, or casseroles in general, let alone eat any of them. So I just said, "NO" to more tradition. This year we would just make do with candied yams and cooked carrots on Thanksgiving.

When I told Richard about the lack of traditional dishes at this years dinner he was appalled. I like to make my hubby happy, so I relented and agreed to make a small green bean casserole. Then on Thanksgiving morning, I was on the phone with my mom she mentioned how disappointed my brother, Nate, was that we weren't having the Sweet Potato casserole...

You can't have disappointed people at Thanksgiving dinner, so since there was still time and I had all the ingredients and I'm the nicest sister he has (the fact I'm the only sister he has doesn't count), I gave into tradition a second time.

On Tuesday, I ate the last helping of sweet potato casserole for lunch all in the name of blessed tradition. It's not gone, I just can not bear to eat another bite. It is sitting in my fridge waiting it's journey to the trash can or disposal since it's week expiry date is up. No one else has had any and the date today is December 2nd with our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, with the traditional dishes looming only a mere 22 days away... 

Here's to hoping Christmas comes slowly...very, very slowly.

The Breakfasts of Champions

"You better eat your Wheaties!"

HA! Not at our house.

This morning as I roused Ben from a peaceful slumber, I asked the daily question...

“What do you want for breakfast?”

He sleepily asked, “What is there?”

Me- “Cereal…”

Ben- “What kind? Lucky Charms? (A boy after my own heart.)

Me- “No. Frosted Flakes, Trix, Cheerios, or Cocoa Puffs.

Ben- “No cereal.” (Grunted like a Neanderthal.)

So like a broken record I went through the other healthy (and not so healthy) options we had time for.

“Pop Tarts, granola bars, Nutrigrain bars, toast, waffles…”

Ben- “Do we have nuggets?”

Me- “You really want to eat nuggets for breakfast?!?” (I threw up a little in my mouth.)

He nodded and smiled his sweet toothless grin, so I went to make nuggets for breakfast.

As I opened the mega bag of Dino Nuggets their smell hit me and my gag reflex tempted the throw up again. I retrieved 4 objects of chicken-who-knows-what that had been ground up and mashed together to form cute little replicas of various dinosaurs… and I was nuking them in the microwave... for my child... for breakfast.

My mother would die, if she knew.

As I waited for them to finish heating I was musing about what weird kids I have, their food choices, and whether or not I should be reported to DCFS for actually letting them eat this stuff, when I briefly flashed back to a time when all I wanted were atypical breakfasts too.

In junior high my favorite thing for breakfast was whatever we had for dinner the night before. Shepherd’s pie, baked potatoes, spaghetti, ham & cheesy potatoes, and my favorite leftover- chicken parmesan, were my breakfasts of choice. Then there was the period when I had onions topped with butter and salt cooked in the microwave every day before I caught the bus.

And I wondered why I didn’t have any friends.

Breakfast foods held no allure for me (unless, it was bacon, which was a sin at our house), so if there were no leftovers, mozzarella sticks dipped in peanut butter had to suffice.

When the beep of the microwave brought me back from my visit with breakfasts past, I decided that maybe food weirdness is genetic and I am actually to blame. So I took a deep breath, swallowed back the throw up, and proudly served Dino Nuggets for breakfast... with a smile.

Comfort

My mother's famous crepes with peach syrup.

Warm cinnamon rolls iced with cream cheese frosting,

meatloaf, scones dripping with honey butter, bacon,

gooey chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven, mashed potatoes and gravy, pecan pie, McDonald's Cheeseburgers, German pancakes, pot stickers, crepes with peach syrup, pumpkin pie, crisp bean burritos, hot chocolate pudding over vanilla ice cream, carrot cake, hot chocolate piled high with whipped cream, coconut cream pie, caramel apples, fettuccini alfredo.

Just my latest cravings...and how I know that old man winter is sitting on my doorstep waiting to coat my world in a blanket of white.

Bring it on old man.