. . .really had nothing

of artistic merit to blog about today. But I came across this picture of a dining table set for a charity event here in Kansas City. Look at it up close. There are raw GREEN BEANS standing upright on each plate in small glass domes. Who woulda thought?


Which brings me straight to Thanksgiving, which I have hosted at my house for the last ten years or so. I love having it at my house. Everyone brings a dish and I make the turkey, stuffing, and exotic vegetables that only a few eat, like leeks in cream sauce (last year. . . delicious but you couldn't have paid some of the folks to even try it.) There are usually 20-25 people, depending upon whether my sister and her family comes from Detroit, or whether Stef and Andy go to Columbus for Thanksgiving or for Christmas.


My Aunt Maria and Uncle Albert are amazed that I can pull this off every year. That's because many years ago, when I was first married, we always went to their house for Thanksgiving. One year TaMia (that's what we call her) asked if I would bring the cranberries. I did not know how to fix cranberries, but I thought I could maybe figure it out. In all honesty, I forgot all about it until we got in the car to go to their house. I made Steve stop at a grocery store and bought a bag of raw cranberries, thinking I could cook them (with some assistance and direction) at my aunt's house. Needless to say, the cranberries never got cooked, and Uncle Albert, some thirty years later, still tells everyone that I brought raw cranberries to Thanksgiving dinner, and every year it gets a little more embellished and extravagant. Uncle Albert has many of these kinds of stories about me, all of which get repeated when the occasion arises (and sometimes when it doesn't.)


Out of necessity, the dinner must be a buffet, because I don't have enough seating for everyone to sit at a table. The guys usually fill up their plates and head back to the TV and football. The youngsters usually stay at the table in the family room, and the senior members of the family get the dining room. Everyone else kind of just finds a place to perch. I have tried to set the dining room table elegantly like the one above, but it has always failed miserably, when people would end up with two dinner plates, two sets of flatware, no water and three wine glasses. I can't even image what Uncle Albert would say if I sat raw green beans in glass domes on top of his dinner plate.