Funny how childhood memories around holiday tables follow us through life.
Leaving home brings them into focus.
A college friend invites you along for Thanksgiving dinner. You make mental notes about the delicious meal, but comparisons to Mother’s Thanksgiving dinner–giblet dressing, potato salad, sweet potato pie–are inevitable. Not quite the same, not as good, but it certainly will do.
Years pass and newer friends and coworkers share dinners at home, testing and stretching their repertoires as hosts with the most cookbooks.
The accumulation of cookbooks and magazine recipes becomes an addiction and experimentation in the kitchen the exercise of a would-be gourmet.
This is a time when you digress from your roots, from those basic dishes and ways of doing things that mark your childhood holiday rituals.
But then something happens–children arrive or a compatible spouse brings culinary riches to the table. And that need to reconnect that everyone talks about kicks in big time.
Food and its preparation are the great connector.
Those endearing childhood memories again: the early-morning sounds of movement in the kitchen, the promising aromas of cooking, the steamy warmth.
And then the moment: sitting down to dinner during a special holiday with close family and friends around.
You remember and you want that again. So you begin to re-create the memories and experiences of those holiday tables. You make them your own.
In this special entertaining issue, you will meet the current and next generations of cooks who take their entertaining in memorable and tasty new directions. A few examples: an all-male gourmet club and families for whom the neighborhood restaurant is as good as home. And William Rice guides us to great carryout dishes and a selection of holiday cocktails. Read on.
And wherever you are this holiday season, remember that home is where you are.
