A Thanksgiving Blog

With the holidays right around the corner and Turkey Day on Thursday I thought I would get a little personal and share a little holiday story/advice for everyone. Now I know that Thanksgiving is all about family but let’s not forget about what brings our family to the table…. The Food!!! Thanksgiving is what my family and I call the Olympics of Eating. It’s the best! Now its tradition in my family for everyone to pitch in and help out with the cooking duties and I’m always in charge of the mashed potatoes and let me just say, I can make some pretty amazing mashed potatoes. Now what goes with mashed potatoes? Gravy of course! About 2 years ago my mom decided to assign me the duty of not only making the mashed potatoes, but also making the gravy that goes along with it. Gravy does not seem that hard to make and I watched my mom years before make it. Didn’t really seem like there was much to it but yeah, I was wrong.

My mom had already cut up all the giblets everything was all set up for me. All I had to do was boil the stuff in a pot and slowly add cornstarch to thicken the sauce. All was going well until I had to add the cornstarch. I started to add the cornstarch power into the mix and stirring then adding some more. I then noticed my gravy was lumping and not thickening. I proceeded to taste test my gravy, then I gagged. It tasted AWEFUL! Not knowing what to do to save the gravy, I added more cornstarch, which of course did not help at all. Finally giving up, I ran to my mom for assistance. She asked me what I did and I told her step by step what I did. She then stopped me at the cornstarch step and started to laugh. Apparently I was supposed to mix the cornstarch with water then slowly add it to the rest of the ingredients in the pot. No one told me this! With a pot full of nasty gravy, we had to run and get gravy at the store. I attempted the next year to make gravy, but still came out as a failure. Thankfully all turned out well and no one was upset with me, but now either someone else makes the gravy or we buy it.

I really hope this story gave some of you a laugh because I know it cracked my family up when I messed up the gravy. They kept asking me “Who ruins gravy?!” and to this day, I still don’t know. My little word of advice is to make sure you know what you’re in that kitchen on Thanksgiving because even the simplest things can go wrong. I also looked up some Thanksgiving dishes and ideas so feel free to take a look and get some ideas or learn to make something awesome for Thanksgiving. You can check out azcentral.com and click on the food tab at the top of the webpage or you can take a look at foodnetwork.com for some more great tips. On that note, I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving Holiday and enjoy your break. You deserve it!



Lonni Summers