Broccoli Rising and Group Hug

Thank you, Broccoli Rising subscribers.  I mean it. With Thanksgiving breathing down our necks, just stop for a second and realize there’s someone out there who’s grateful for you.  It’s me!

An extra serving of thanks to all of you who reached out last week to share your feelings about the election results. I’m right there with you —grief-stricken, incredulous, enraged, sickened, scared. And yet we’re all still here and we’re in this together. Let’s hold each other up.  

How are your Thanksgiving plans coming together? I’m excited about hosting this year.  It’ll be almost like old times, with a big, boisterous mix of new friends and extended family, including some coming from out of state. It’s been years since we celebrated this holiday together as a family. They’ve been checking in about the event, specifically about the meal. And they’ve seemed kind of anxious. Will their favorite dishes be there?  Will it be like the childhood Thanksgivings they remember? Will it be what they need? 

At first, I was kind of pissed. Did they think I’d let them down? But then I realized what they want — what we all want — is about more than food. It’s about comfort, connection and despite everything, the assurance things haven’t changed. This year in particular, when it may feel like the ground’s shifting beneath our feet, sameness is what we’re clinging to.  

Well, I can offer comfort and connection plus our family’s famed cornbread dressing.  But I can’t promise everything will be the way it used to be, or at least the way we remember it. The thing is, change happens whether we like it or not.  Even our family’s cornbread dressing recipe has changed over time.  

It originated, we think, from my paternal great-grandmother, and has been part of Thanksgiving celebrations for over half a century.  It used to take two days and three generations of women to prepare. Ten pounds — yes! — of carrots, onions, celery, and garlic were all sautéed then ground in a metal meat grinder that clamped on to the kitchen table.  It looked like an instrument of torture, and took serious upper body strength to operate Thanks to streamlining the technique and using a food processor, I can make the recipe by myself in a few hours, and I can do it without the eggs past generations used. I miss making it with my mother and grandmother, but I don’t miss the mess or the process. They wouldn’t miss it, either. They were more into party than prep.

Family fractures, personal grudges, and frayed tempers can, alas, be as much a Thanksgiving tradition as cornbread dressing (but harder to swallow).  Tempting though it may be to attack each other for the choices we make, dietary,  religious, political, lifestyle or otherwise, honey, now’s not the time. 

Even when we don’t adore each other, we still need each other — how crazy is that?   At a time of epic loneliness, cooking and eating together takes us a step towards healing — take it from the surgeon general.  The table offers a place to come together, especially at Thanksgiving. 

The holiday may not be how it used to be.  But we can make it how we want it to be.  This Thanksgiving, try to let go of old ways that have failed us.  Hold tight to the traditions that serve us.  And hold on to the hope that change can be change for the better.  

Thanksgiving changes. So do we.  But my family’s cornbread dressing will still be on the table, and even with 10 pounds of vegetables, they key ingredient is cornbread. In the same way, the key ingredient in Thanksgiving is thanks.  

I had fun sharing more vegan Thanksgiving tips with Flavor of Italy’s Wendy Holloway. Her podcast airs tomorrow, so have a listen, make a recipe.

This week is Miami Book Fair, with hundreds of authors and literary events. Next week, need I tell you, is Thanksgiving.  Broccoli Rising will be taking a one-week hiatus, because darling, those 10 pounds of vegetables aren’t going to roast themselves.  

Broccoli Rising will be back in your inbox Monday, December 2.  In the meantime, I’m opening my Chat line to all Broccoli Rising subscribers, both free and paid, so check in with me as  you like through Thanksgiving weekend. Let’s talk each other through Thanksgiving pumpkin pie catastrophes and in-law issues, hold each other up and give each other a virtual group hug.

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving, an abundant table, a little grace, and a bounty of people you love.

Beloved Broccoli Rising paid subscribers, for the first time ever, I’m sharing my family’s big-ass cornbread dressing recipe. Kind of a pain to make, but yes, it’s that good.

If you’ve been toying with the idea of becoming a paid subscriber, let this be the incentive you need to join the mighty Broccoli Rising paid subscriber tribe.

Thanks.