I Need To Be Stuffed.

*SIGH* Why? Why do people have to vary from traditional holiday meals? OK, wait, I take that back. I can completely understand if on Christmas you want to change it up because you’ve had so much turkey/ham/green bean casserole that you want to vomit on your shoes. By Christmas, let the home made Mexican food, barbecue or take out Chinese food flow. But quit F*CKING with Thanksgiving. There are many things that are an unspoken code or law that we all should abide by. I think that one of them should be that it is REQUIRED to serve fully leaded, fat assed traditional holiday dishes at Thanksgiving. 

My being an admitted foody, (I hate that term but whatever,) I am always seeking out the yummiest food to eat in any given situation. This year, there was no yumminess. There was no joy. All I wanted to do was hang myself after being jipped and I’ll tell you something else, if my mom isn’t cooking at Christmas, everyone can kiss my a$$ because I won’t go. I know, I sound like a completely bitter bitch but A) It’s my blog so there and B) It’s been a rough year and Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday so for it to be a letdown almost made me swallow a handful of pills.

For your reference, here are some guidelines I’ve thrown together for future holiday gatherings or just meals in general where people other than your immediate family members will be afflicted involved:

• You have decided to completely change your lifestyle in regards to your diet for whatever reason be it out of necessity for health or otherwise:  You then decide to host Thanksgiving at your house and insist on cooking and not letting anyone else contribute to the meal.  Instead of pushing off your “new lifestyle diet” crappy tweaked dishes off on everyone else, be a decent human being and make yourself something separate that fits into your diet guidelines and let all of the other gluttons ENJOY what they’re eating.  As much as you might think your dishes taste the same as the traditional holiday fare and you might try to “sneak” your tweaked recipes in there and wait to see the pleasure on everyone’s faces as they chew their food, THEY DON’T! NEWSFLASH: Your palate HAS CHANGED and your sugar/gluten/meat/soy free sh*t doesn’t fly.  We’re all commenting on it being good or not saying anything about it because we don’t want to be rude!  

• You can’t cook your way out of a wet paper bag or follow a recipe worth a damn: Let me elaborate.  If you’re not sure that this may be you, ask yourself the following questions and if they apply, you might be a $hitty cook.  When suggesting that you host any type of meal where a grill is not utilized (i.e. you will be cooking on the stove or in the oven), do people that have eaten one of your meals before quickly suggest that you go out to eat instead?  Do they perhaps cite that they “don’t want you to go through all of that trouble just for them (unless they are your grown children or grandchildren-with the exception that this is a constant suggestion from said children)?”  When the holidays come around do friends or family members quickly volunteer to make MAJOR contributions to the meal or attempt to commandeer the cooking by coming to “help” you cook but basically shoving you out of the kitchen to do it by themselves?  When you cook with a recipe or a boxed meal but then decide to “make it your own” by adding other ingredients or changing it up in whatever way you see fit and then when people taste it they don’t RAVE without prompting?  Then yeah, take the hint, you’re not a fantastic cook.  Grab up a tried and true recipe and stick to it by the letter.  Heck, go the extra mile and admit to people that you’ve recognized your shortcomings as a cook and tell them that you’re striving to do better so that people will give you honest feedback.  You can avoid many a disappointing holiday by your guest load being light, or maybe even receiving crappy gifts as revenge. Unless you surround yourself with sociopaths, people are generally quite forgiving and will make a concerted effort to forgive or even help you.

• You blatantly refuse to serve traditional American holiday dishes and instead want to serve your own cultural or ethnic dishes ignoring requests from others or shunning others from bringing a traditional dish to the meal: F*ck you. F*ck you, f*ck you, f*ck you.

Guess what? I’m not a great cook, admittedly. If I don’t follow a recipe my cooking quickly turns to a$$. The few times I have gotten a wild hair and asked a loved one to put up with my experimentation in the kitchen and it has gone to crap, I’ve apologized profusely and ordered a pizza. Let’s all do our little parts to avoid adding to the suicide rate this holiday season, shall we?