An Open Plan

Unless you live in an old house, long gone are the days of the hostess gliding through the swinging kitchen door into the dining room like Loretta Young with the perfect Thanksgiving bird. For many of us, the prep and cooking happens right in front of everyone and actually becomes a part of the celebration. In fact, it IS the celebration if you live in an open plan home.

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In our home, the men do most of the cooking on Thanksgiving and it’s a process that lasts for days.  Let me say up front that the rest of us cooked and cleaned up but it was Gordon’s sons, Colin and Ian, who planned the menu for months in advance while it morphed from outrageous to doable. I wasn’t sure about the seven pies and two tortes for 15 people, but for every holiday I can remember, you can’t find a piece of pie in the house by Sunday. As you can tell, we’re big eaters and grazers. 

I’ve realized over the years that there are some historical components to this male cooking thing and Gordon’s 95-year-old mother started them. He is the oldest of four boys who grew up in his parents’ resort on a lake in Idaho. When the boys were young, Margaret would give them free range in the kitchen on Saturdays and they learned to bake and cook. To this day, all are fabulous cooks. I have this visual image of these four young boys in a big kitchen with flour everywhere, having a great time. They could do whatever they wanted as long as they cleaned it up.