Yams

Y is for Yam.

An ugly root vegetable that turns the most lovely orange when cooked. One of those traditional Thanksgiving foods. Not that I have deep traditions on this holiday. My mother said it was not a Canadian holiday, so she never cooked that day. Often we never got dressed until noon, watching the parades on the tv (black and white) from Macy's and Hudson's, eating toast or leftovers or peanut butter and jam sandwiches. A lazy day, and as I remember, without drama or rage.

It became a meaningful day for me the year we were sent to Saudi. The Saturday before we got the call, and the Sunday after we got on the busses to Ft. Carson. And the Thursday I spent with friends at their Thanksgiving, D with his family. We've counted the Friday as the beginning of our life together. Handy, since when friends come back to town to visit family, it's pretty easy to get them around the day after. We had our (seven years delayed) wedding reception on Thanksgiving Friday, just for friends, which was a smashing success that spawned at least one marriage.

Two traditional foods I make on the day, cranberry sauce from berries, and yams. Cranberry sauce because I picked up a bag of the berries, read the directions for the sauce, which was so brain-dead easy, I figured I could do it - and get credit for being posh. Yams because my mother made candied yams, canned yams with sliced pineapple, brown sugar cinnamon, a walnut in the center of each pineapple slice, baked in a round pyrex pan. I've adjusted. Real yams, microwaved to done, mashed with pineapple juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, brown sugar, into an iron skillet, covered with pineapple slices or chunks, rebaked. No measurements, just what looks right.

All we care about these days is making sure we have food on any holiday.