Every November families in the United States gather together to feast and be thankful. In years past I too celebrated on the third Thursday in November by preparing a massive meal for my family, counting our blessings, and followed up by loosening the top button on my jeans because I ate too much.
Then the kids grew up and my job would get all crazy from the following week through mid-December every year. A holiday meal that close to December didn’t really work for everyone anymore. Combine that with conflicts of who would celebrate with whom and you’ll understand why we started having what my kids affectionately coined as “Fakesgiving” at the end of October. We’d go to the farm, choose and carve a pumpkin and enjoy a typical Thanksgiving feast, although it had become Paleo/AIP based after finding out that the S.A.D. (standard American diet) had helped create a leaky gut and poor digestion.
Sadly, it wasn’t too many years before Fakesgiving became a thing of the past as all those who used to attend are now living out-of-state. So, what’s next?
This year, I suggested that Hubby and I scale back the menu, switch it up a bit and commit to nothing else. Since we’d gone to Vegas recently and I’d brought home a cold (don’t believe ’em when they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas) I wasn’t in much of a mood to celebrate. Grabbing a Wegmans catalog from my pile of mail, I decided to create the perfect menu for Hubby and I.
For those of you who don’t have a Wegmans, I’m sorry. It’s a mega grocery store with the most beautiful display of produce and delicious foodstuffs. Maybe I’m biased since I love going grocery shopping, but I find Wegmans quite festive and fun around the holidays.
I’d decided on a menu: Roasted Lobster Tails with a side of cauliflower risotto, a goat cheese and apple arugula salad, prosciutto wrapped asparagus and a sweet potato, cranberry, bacon, spinach medley. As we’d gotten a gift card from Hubby’s work to buy the traditional turkey, (and now there wasn’t a turkey on my menu) I decided we’d use that money to buy lobster tails.
Except, the store we had the credit with didn’t have any lobster tails. Instead they had…
LIVE LOBSTERS!
As I wandered over to the lobster tank I could feel it coming on. Those poor guys, just chillin’ in the water, antennae twitching, waiting for their death in a pot of steaming water. ACK! My lips pouted. Hubby noticed a sign.
“Hey look, honey, they’ll steam them for free, just like with shrimp!”
My eyes started to tear up.
“We can come back when they are open.”
I shuffled a bit closer to get a better look… and then… it blinked. It BLINKED! I didn’t know a lobster could blink!
That took care of it for me. I’d advance to full-fledged empathy for a prisoner waiting for his execution so I could dip him in butter and eat him. With tears streaming down my cheeks I looked at Hubby and said, “This is so embarrassing, but I can’t do it.” I couldn’t even leave the store until I’d had a minute to compose myself. What a wimp. I eat animals; plenty of them! What the heck was wrong with me?
Hubby put his arm around me and with an understanding, albeit disappointed voice, told me it was fine. We didn’t have to have lobster. We’d have plenty of food with the other menu items. But now we had a credit on the gift card that was to go towards a protein for a meal. Instead, I bought greeting cards for my family so I could let them know how grateful I am that they are in my life. Still, that left us with $2.55 of unused funds. I encouraged Hubby to look around for something to top off the total. I didn’t care what it was.
As we wandered the aisles, looking for a candy bar or beverage, my eyes fell to an item on an end cap. Eureka! I’d found the protein for our holiday dinner!
That’s right! I’m tossing the fancy holiday meal right out the window. I’m having gelatin from boiled animal bones and blue food coloring mixed with my favorite vodka. Mmm, mmm, good! Take that, Norman Rockwell!
Snippets and Tidbits 