Thank You, Happy, More Please

I love Thanksgiving.  I love it the same way I love Christmas; it's not about the holiday itself per se, but it is everything that is has come to mean to my family.  Thanksgiving is when my sister and I come home, when my mom, my sister, and I all congregate in the kitchen to turn out a meal together.  It is when we forget about everything else we have going on and we focus on good wine, good food, and great company.

This year the menu was fairly standard, at least in terms of D. family classics.  For dinner, my dad opened two bottles of red wine.  The first was a Bordeaux, Chateau Daugay (Saint Emilion Grand Cru) and the second was a sweeter Italian wine, Sulin.  The Sulin is one of my personal favorites, which makes my family laugh, since it is only 5% alcohol.  But it has lovely hints of rose and violet on the nose and is sweet on the palate, and it is slightly frizzante, which I find quite pleasant.

My sister made her cornbread sage stuffing and her cranberry relish.  I made sweet potato biscuits.  My mom made the main dish of rosemary Cornish game hens stuffed with sticky rice, as always.  For dessert we had pecan bars with homemade vanilla whipped cream.  New on the menu this year was a roasted garlic and onion soup that I made, as well as kale chips. 

Also new this year was an addition to our table.  He cooked for me in my apartment in September, and I brought him home with me on Wednesday so that he could cook with me in the house I grew up in.  Together we shaped biscuits, baked kale, and made cookies.  He played the piano.  I made him breakfast.  He cracked lobster claws for me and put them on my plate.  I introduced him to trung vit lon.  We looked through old photo albums and played Scrabble.  After dinner he pulled me into his arms and we danced in my living room with no music.  My mom snapped this picture without us knowing and I have never liked a blurry photo more.

Thanksgiving is supposed to be about giving thanks, about remembering to be grateful in life.  I try very hard to live with gratitude, to remember to be appreciative of my family, my friends, my good health, and the bright future that I have, but with him, with this sweet someone who cooks for me, it is impossible not to feel lucky.  I have never known such sweet love and joy.  Thank You Happy More Please is the name of a great movie that I saw this summer, but it is also what I say to the universe many mornings now when I wake up.  Thank you for what I have been given, I am so happy.  Could I have another serving please?