Wake Me Up before you Go-Go

Jenn and I spent Thanksgiving at our friends' (Chris and Katie) place. The meal was positively scrumptious. The only thing missing was a nap afterwards. But there were many less than subtle differences between Turkey Day there versus any Turkey Day in my past. Those of you who have seen me eat turkey know about my legendary Gravy Wall of Mashed Potatoes. I bring this up only to stress my love of gravy. What I do is create a barrier using mashed Potatoes. The barrier acts as a buffer between things which need gravy, such as the turkey, and those which don't, such as cranberry sauce. And I put enough gravy on my plate to pretty much reacht he top of the gravy wall. This brings us to the first key difference: the gravy. Katie's gravy was positively delicious. The one thing I noticed right away was that it had an odd thing in it: ingredients. See, mom's gravy is basically the fat, some flour to thicken it and some bullion to add some extra taste. Katie's had crazy things like apples and other things that constitue ingredients. Never before did I realize that gravy, in some parts of the world, (namely the Watermolen household) includes ingerdients.

There were other such differences, which leads me to my first point today which is that my diet is remarkably unremarkable. Everythig I eat requires a bare minimum in preparation. Even the meals I thought required preparation (past turkey dinners for instance) actually required little to none in comparison to what some folks are doing out there. I'm not sure where this stems from. Is it the fact that my mom, bless her, just could not cook nor showed any interest in doing so (from teh purest "read a recipe and put a whole bunch of things together" stand point)? This led to very little experimantation and variation in my meals growing up and has obviously affected the way I eat today. Or is there a gradual change in the population, starting with witht he thirtysomethings, where more and more people are dedicating time to what they make. I think this might be the case, too. Two supporting facts: the ever-growing popularity in Whole Foods Market/Trader Joes type grocery stores and the fact that growing up, even when I went to places where the moms cooked, there were rarely, if ever, too much additional effort apparent in the dishes. Lasagna was aobut the most exotic I think I ever had elsewhere as a kid.
The odd part of this whole thing is that just about everyone that isn't me owns a cook book. But Until recently, I seriously doubted anyone ever used it beyond the simple "let's make sure I don't fuck up this turkey". From time to time a dessert here and there. But it was never something I really witnessed or got to sample until my friends, people my own age, started cooking.

Another Thanksgiving point that I alluded to earlier but I would liek to expand upon: I didn't get to nap. This is a very sad thing as on the East Coast, the post-dinner nap was always a requirement. You finish your meal, you saddle up in front of the TV, turn on the game (usually it's just about half time in the second NFL game) and you fall asleep. You wake up just in time for the 4th quarter. It's perfect. But living on the West Coast does not allow for this ritual. The problem is the game times. You're sitting down to eat just as the second game is finishing. And prime-time Turkey Day fare doesn't start for another 3 hours. There's nothing to nap to! This is just one of those little things that 99.999% of the people that move from East to West probalby don't notice.

But that's why I'm me, I guess.