Thanksgiving: The aftermath

...and that's not even the half of it.

Anyway. Now that all the dishes are washed, all the leftovers are put away, and all the guests have been sent home sated and happy, I want to take a moment to reflect a little on this whole prepping-cooking-eating extravaganza that has consumed my life for the past week.

I say that like it's a bad thing, but really, it's not. Cooking is such a fundamentally satisfying act. I often come home from a day of spinning my wheels, intellectually speaking, and feel pretty blue. Even if I've actually gotten a lot of things accomplished, it's often hard for me to feel like I've been making meaningful progress. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way. But I can reach into the fridge or the pantry, pull out some ingredients, and whip up a quick dinner. Cooking offers just the right combination of difficult brain-work and mindless manual labor. I can turn off parts of my mind that I've been using all day in service of thinking about how I want something to taste and what I need to do to get it there. I can get lost in the rhythm of the the knife on the cutting board or the feel of water running over my hands.

There's something deeply joyous about the process of working with real physical stuff and coming out with a real physical product. (See this wonderful New York Times article for a more elegantly worded version of this point.) I know that if everything doesn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to, I'll still come out with something edible at the end. I'll still have done something worthwhile. It just takes a little bit of technique and a little bit of chemistry to make a little bit of magic.

Thanksgiving is my chance to take that process to the next level. And while I would never want to do this professionally (oh, my aching feet!), it's fun to pretend for a couple of days. It's fun to plan the menu and buy the ingredients and watch it all come to fruition. I must admit that there were a few times during the prep and during the meal when I wondered whether all the work was worth it --- people! don't you realize how freaking hard it was to dice all that butternut squash? show some respect! and how the hell could I have forgotten to make an adequate plan for serving dessert?! --- but then I realized that I was missing the point. Sometimes you have to do a thing just to do it. And while I don't want to get all flaky and mystical, it's a least a little bit true that the point of this particular journey is the journey itself. There's a meal at the end of it, and a yummy one at that, but that's more an excuse than a goal. For me, doing Thanksgiving the way we do it is about pushing my limits in the kitchen. I'm so glad to have the opportunity do this, and I can't wait for next year and for the next challenge. Maybe we'll try making our own butter, or our own puff pastry. Maybe we'll try kicking the garnishes up a notch with some infused herb oils or vegetable powders. Maybe we'll do the whole thing vegan for a change. Who knows? What matters is, no matter what, it's going to be one heck of a ride.