Thanksgiving with S'mores and Rutabagas? Making Our Own Traditions

Hello,

It has been awhile, but I am plugging away again, revitalizing the blog for the holiday season, so I can send out a cheerful e-mail reminding you to check us out.

How was our Thanksgiving?

New and different. We had a multi-family celebration! Ian's former roommate Eric [you can see him in the wedding pictures; he's the groomsman with the ponytail] bought a house this fall. He and his houseful of new roommates [including Ian's sister Anna] hosted Thankgiving this year. This consisted of:

Eric [and his parents and sister]
Anna [and her mother, her brother Ian and his wife, Suzanne, and, later, her sister Kirsten with our neice and nephew, Emerald and Josiah, in tow.]
Deenie and Daniel, married couple who add a cachet of domesticity to the house, and whose claim to fame is Jubilant Glassworks [if you see me wearing a glass pendant, they made it!]


In fact, here's me wearing one now.


Both Daniel and Deenie's mother were a big hit with Josiah.
Chelsea, the newest roommate, who dropped in periodically between her other engagements to sneak a piece of macaroni and cheese from the bowl [to be fair, we were all doing this!]

I've always wanted to do something like this--unite friends and family for a holiday. I've felt for a long time that the people who you are closest to are the ones you should spend holidays with, and that our holidays should acknowledge that our communities are made up of friends as well as family.

I'm also a big fan of making new and unique traditions. It's something exciting about being newly married--what we do for these first few holidays will start the path that future holidays will take [if we ever have kids, I expect it will be another fresh start!]. Later I will post a more complete list of our emerging Christmas traditions; for now I will just mention that our traditional meal is a crab dinner, our Christmas stockings are handmade by Ian's mother from leftover scraps of our wedding outfits, and that this year we will listen to the Amelie soundtrack on Christmas Day.

Sometimes you can intentionally create a tradition or a memory; other times they just happen, and your attempted creations fall flat. For example, from this year's Thanksgiving, I will remember Eric's spirited recounting of his three week stay at a chimpanzee orphanage in Africa. Did you know that people adopt chimpanzees illegally as babies because they are so darn cute, but by the time they are six they are several times stronger than you are and tearing apart your house? It was a fascinating conversation.

I will also remember Deenie's fabulous Eggplant Parmesan. While I like turkey, it turns out that I could go vegetarian and not miss a darn thing on Thanksgiving. That and the macaroni and cheese [from scratch!] were sumptuous.

I will also remember, unfortunately that both of my attempted traditions were rather a flop. Instead of cooking yams, I decided to roast rutabaga. We've cooked it before: rutabaga is a root vegetable that cooks up rather like potatoes or carrots.



These are rutabagas.



You can slice it and steam it, or grill it, and once it is thoroughly cooked it is delicious, and quite naturally sweet. We've usually served it simply, with a little salt but for this special occasion I marinated it in lemon juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg, put it in the fridge overnight and baked it the next day.

And it was wholly inedible--it came out bitter. Perhaps next time I should add the lemon juice afterward? Hmmm.

Also, Eric's new house has a fireplace, so I suggested that we do S'mores, which everyone originally thought was a great idea. I went to some length to get the firewood, and Ian and I brought all the fixings. Unfortunately, the fire smoked and we had to leave the front door open, and all of the adults [I do not include myself in this] determined that pie was far more up their alley. Emerald had an irritated throat already and so stayed away from the fire. Josiah and I made several S'mores each, and Ian and Daniel each appeared for a single marshmallow. Not an overwhelming success. [However, all the leftovers will do well if we get together and build gingerbread houses with the kids some time in December, as we hope to do. By hook or by crook....]

Suzanne

PS. Can you tell that I was a little strapped for suitable images to go with this post?
PPS. I do have a tour of our home to post; I may do that soon.
PPPS. Sorry it has been so long for anything substantial. I've been reorganizing our photographs, and it broke all the links!