Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude: Giving Thanks

Note: Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude is a weekly(ish) feature about food, food and more FOOD. No, I do not necessarily want to be a food blogger, but I do LOVE to talk about food prep, cooking food, eating food and making sweet love to food.

Okay, maybe not the "sweet love" part. After all, this is not meant to be an homage to 9 1/2 Weeks.

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Like many folks, I love Thanksgiving. LOVE. It's simply about food and family with no rushing around buying gifts, no month-long list of activities that generally results in some of stress or guilt.

Food.

Family.

Unfortunately, my family does not come from a long line of spectacular food traditions. We do the basics, the usual dishes -- most of those dishes arrive at the banquet half-warm after having sat in a car for a minimum of 30 minutes. And I am fine with that -- I love a simple plate of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy.  Of course, I have to bring Average Jane's Cranberry sauce because canned cranberry sauce will not suffice since I discovered how easy this sauce is to make.  And I also bring Mrs. CPA's Funeral Corn (truth be told, I've made Funeral Corn just to eat all regular, non-holiday like. For a little "snack". YUM.)  And! Either my Aunt Joan or I will make her delicious Weird Whipped Cream Cranberry Salad. I love cranberries so much that I actively look forward to the mouth sores I get after 2 straight days of eating them.  This is the one dish that I truly associate with all of my childhood Thanksgivings -- the salad is sweet and I always felt I was getting to sneak in a little early dessert under my parents' noses.

When I was a kid, we would pack my grandma's house from the basement to the rafters for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Over the years, we have outgrown that house and now we rent a community hall in a nearby town for Thanksgiving. Easily, 40 of us arrive. Some years more, some years less. It is not warm or cozy as someone's house, but we ALL get to be together for the holiday and that is all we care about.  Although, for Christmas, we do separate off into our smaller family groups.  Not coincidentally, the quality of the food rises significantly (look for a post on how I am getting serious about Christmas Dinner this year.  SERIOUS, y'all.)

So, even though the Thanksgiving food in my family is not all that great, I still look forward to that tepid gravy smothering spoonfuls of cold, mushy stuffing. I am thankful for the opportunity of just hanging out with my dad's side of the family. My grandma's generation is slowly passing away and each year, I choose to cherish the folks who are still with us to celebrate.

Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude: The Fancy Pants Edition

Note: Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude is a weekly(ish) feature about food, food and more FOOD. No, I do not necessarily want to be a food blogger, but I do LOVE to talk about food prep, cooking food, eating food and making sweet love to food.


Okay, maybe not the "sweet love" part. After all, this is not meant to be an homage to 9 1/2 Weeks.


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I love, love frilly, pretty dishes.  Lucky me, I have grandmothers and great-aunts willing to donate to the cause.

Honestly, the dishes I appreciate do not have to be in grand fashion or even very expensive.  Some of my favorite dishes are the cheap molded glass sort that are supposed to imitate a fine cut glass.

Last year, my grandma gave me 3 sets of her Serva-Snack trays.  She used them for functions at her church, but people use paper these days.  I think I may have squealed out loud when I opened them up, still in their original packaging.  Since I was wanting to move away from paper plates anyway, I was excited to have a solid set of appetizer dishes.  Now, I almost always use these now when hosting parties -- they are durable, dishwasher friendly and the perfect size for serving appetizers. The cups are actually too small, but the plates are awesome.  I also adore the simplicity of the Colonial Lady pattern. For my Bridesmaids Watch party, I made hand-molded cream cheese mints that were TO DIE FOR.  I cannot wait for someone to have a baby or bridal shower just so that I have an excuse to make these again.

I wish my photo skillz could do justice to how pretty this all looked.

When I was in high school, I commented once that I really liked my grandma's silver pattern -- it is the Prestige Grenoble pattern.  While I was an undergrad, my great-aunt Joan came across the pattern at an estate sale and picked it up for me.  Later, my grandma gave me her collection.  I now how have enough silver to easily host a 40+ person dinner.  Ridiculous, I know.

This is my very favorite piece.  It is a tomato server.

I love the simplicity of this pattern.  When I was in college, this was my everyday silverware since I did not really have the money to waste on buying an stainless steel set.

Even for a SuperBowl party, I love getting out my fancy dishes.  

Buffalo chicken dip never looked better, folks.