What I ate for Thanksgiving
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After weeks (months, years) of cooking, for my job, for fun, for stories and families and friends and just the normal repeating cycles of daily sustenance, I decided on my Thanksgiving menu: nothing. With the kids out of town, I declined the kind invitations that came my way and, on the single biggest feast day in this country, I fasted. This was not for any political, religious or social reason (though it could, probably even should, have been), but out of sheer fatigue.
My dog and I hiked up Runyon Canyon (right), walked along the beach, watched football. No turkey, no cranberry sauce, no dishes or performance anxiety. (Note to PETA: I fed my dog.) It was difficult not to think about food, especially in my line of work, but for the most part I managed. I was grateful for things: food, of course; that my daughters were eating a feast in a cabin in Mammoth; and that their world is one filled with a relative privilege that many do not have. Also empty freeways and the happiness of strangers at rest. At sundown, I broke my fast with a bowl of soup, an approved method in many of the world’s religions, which recognize that hunger is a problematic, most difficult subject.
Here’s a picture of my soup. It’s chocolate soup, made with 71% Valrhona chocolate spiked with cayenne and cinnamon and frothed by pouring it back and forth to mix it, as the Mayans and Aztecs did. A quick thumb through ‘Larousse Gastronomique’ (my cultural and religious reference guide) revealed that in the early days of European chocolate, the church set so little store in the New World food that they didn’t even consider the consumption of it to be breaking Lenten fast. A happy fact for many contemporary Christians. I don’t know if that’s still the rule, but it worked for me. Add that to the long, long litany of things I was thankful for this holiday.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photos by Amy Scattergood
