Thanksgiving

A grey day in Louisville, damp, and what some would call gloomy. I can’t disagree, but I choose to think of it as a little more holiday-ish. I mean, let’s face it, Thanksgiving and Christmas come in November and December; they are supposed to be comfort-food events!

So the basic question at Home Cuisine this time of year is how to enjoy Thanksgiving with indulgent food, but no scale-busting after-effects. The answer to the question, of course, is that so much of Thanksgiving is basically healthy that one needs only a little moderation, not a lot of deprivation.

When I realized that, my eyes were opened. That’s the key: think about the menu at Thanksgiving, and emphasize the positive. Turkey is about the healthiest meat we eat—the rest of the year, it’s considered dietetic. And much of Thanksgiving dinner is vegetables (okay, often holiday vegetables are prepared decadently, but a little creativity can get around that). Even potatoes and sweet potatoes make important contributions to healthy eating if we go light on the butter. Along those lines, if we don’t pack our cranberries with sugar (say, use half the sugar, augmented with cinnamon and orange zest), we’re ahead of the game. By the time we hit dessert, we have enough will power left not to overdo it.

The trick, in my opinion, is to concentrate on savoring the flavors of the foods. When we really focus on that, we can slow down and enjoy. Remembering our blessings should be a joy, don’t you think?

I love to make a dinner that my family and friends will love. My goal is to make them feel good about themselves and others. I want us all to feel so lucky to be together, to be alive, to have a dinner that makes us feel special. Yes, we could all eat until we fell into a stupor … but maybe the ultimate gift is to make it great both on Thanksgiving day and the next morning when we all get on the scales.