Thanksgiving Day Reflections: Part 1 Reducing My Work Load

Great Depression era Soup and bread line, pumpkin soup and other recipes below

We had Thanksgiving this year without cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandmothers around the table. We did however invite a female undergrad from the college where my wife and I are Profs; the student baby sits for us and she has become extended family. She brought along a friend from high school.  These were two African-Americans undergrads come from a city in the Southeast. One attended Babson the other a historically black college and university (HBCU) also in the South East. The two decided to spend the holiday together at Babson which has been abandoned at most students went home for the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Most profs have a tremendous amount of grading to do on the eve of and during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. My wife and I are no different. In my case as a prof with ADHD this is most often a very labor-intensive and depressing time of the year, in particularly this year with a book project due on December 15. Thus we decided to have our Thanksgiving Day dinner at a restaurant http://www.petitrobertbistro.com/ and let somebody else do the shopping, prepping, cooking, serving, and dishes. While we enjoyed the meal we went around the table and shared what we're thankful for. Listening to my life and then my six-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son share was nice. But the words are two dinner guests moved and inspired me to write this story. They said they had never eaten in such a nice restaurant in their lives. They seemed uncomfortable with the prices when we first received our menus but we quickly assured them that we would be treating and glad to do so. They seemed excited about the gorgeous table arrangements, baskets of warm freshly baked French baguettes served with butter, creamy and delicious pumpkin soup, perfectly baked bass with garnishes, and pumpkin cheesecake with vanilla ice cream on top for dessert. The excellent service and the pampering they received from the wait staff they thoroughly enjoyed. The scene reminded of the stark contrast of my grandmother who struggled to put food on the table during the Great Depression. More tomorrow but today let me share some related recipe links.

Grandma Opie and Thanksgiving: http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/11/remembering-thanksgiving-day-at-grandma.html

Pumpkin History and My Pumpkin Soup Recipe: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2009/11/reuse-halloween-pumpkins-for.html

The all about pumpkin soup link: http://www.pumpkinsoup.org/

Turkey Leftover Recipes and tips: http://tipnut.com/turkey-leftover-recipes/