As James said in his blog, he holds two holidays above all others, two holidays in which he can truly revel. High Holy days he calls them, not because of any religious inclination (Christmas? Meh. Easter? Whatever. Buddah’s birthday? Nothing.)

But for two days a year, he worships his own dark God: Food. On Thanksgiving and Lunar New Year.

Last Year's Bird

On those most sacred of culinary days, there will be no kitchen utensil that will go unused, all recipes are vetted with a dry run, and annotations from last year’s feast—dutifully recorded before during and after the event—are consulted with all due reverence. Like a rabbi, he even has a pointer, lest he besmirch his sacred text or, more precisely, the iPad that contains the sacred text. (His pointer is made by Belkin and is part of their Chef Stand. I can’t believe I know this.)

Yes, in two days, James will perform his Thanksgiving hoodoo, and if I blog about it I’m the virgin who will be sacrificed. (Leave your crude pun in the comments section.)

For anyone who has eaten food prepared by James, you know that when he puts his mind to it, he is a wizard in the kitchen. And on Thanksgiving, he really puts his mind to it. And I love it. It’s wonderful. Great. And yet…

Like the priests of old who debated for centuries whether Jesus owned his own cloak, for James there is no detail so small that he won’t run it by me.

“Hey! Do you think your family would eat a mashed potato casserole or would they only eat mashed potatoes?”

“Either is fine. It’s 2 AM. Go back to sleep.”

“No, but see, the casserole would have crumbles on top and if they’re expecting traditional mashed potatoes it could…” Suddenly I hear this. (Actual audio from inside my brain click to hear it. )

That’s right. “Mwah, mwah, mwah… lactose intolerant… Mwah, mwah, mwah…only serves 10 and we’re having 12 people, but that counts kids… Mwah, mwah, mwah…What do you think? Doug?”

I respond, “Either is fine. Go back to sleep.”

“But if I made traditional mashed potatoes, I got this great recipe from the…Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah,mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah…”

I pull the pillow over my head, and wait until his voice goes up, like a question. “2 AM. Fine. Sleep.”

I swear to god. I have heard him tell unwitting friends of the tragic tale of how he got the turkey this year more than once. If he gets going it’s a ten minute opera, trust me. If you toodle over to his blog, he had this to say (I know how hard it was for him not to elaborate)…

“Today I got up early to arrive at the Farmer’s Market at 7:45. Had an order there for a local Heritage Turkey but was hoping to snag a slightly bigger one. I was in luck. My turkey is beautiful, all 19.75 lbs of it. Heritage turkeys are turkeys that look like ye olde turkeys from days of yore, before they got all Pamela Anderson-ed. More leg meat, smaller breasts. It may shock some of you, but I am not a breast man. Dark meat all the way.”

So… he almost didn’t get the turkey he wanted. But then he did. It will taste good.

I will have my next real conversation with James in December—mid-December, mind you, because we have a few weeks of “…the palate cleansers we had between courses didn’t really seem to go over very well, maybe squash sorbet wasn’t such a good idea… mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah.” And then early in the year is Chinese New Years and it’s the same thing, but I have to pretend like I remember the difference between bao and shumai.

But of course I jest. How it disappoints him that I’m not enraptured by food. I eat pretty much just because I don’t want to die. And Benjamin is the same. This is the tragedy of James’ life, like a Greek myth, to be condemned to cook for me and Ben. I notice when it tastes good (usually). I notice when I don’t like how it tastes (rarely). I appreciate his hard work and the care with which he selects each ingredient. I just don’t get into it so much. He could make the exact same Thanksgiving meal as last year and I’d be fine. Worse, I wouldn’t notice. Heresy, I know.

“This year I used chestnuts in the dressing. Did you like that better or last year’s dressing?”

“Uh…”

Believe it or not, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. (Except for my birthday. July 2nd. Write it down.)
If I can look past the conservative Christian, Puritanical, genocidal origins, if I can look past the lies about the original Thanksgiving that are spread disseminated to school children each year like small pox blankets, if I have to do that but I still like the holiday, it must be a pretty good one.

I like being thankful. I have so much to be thankful for: a wonderful husband and son, fantastic friends, an interesting life, my health and my family’s health, the list is limitless. I’m Thankful I get to spend the day with my family (my mother, my brother, sister-in-law and their two girls, my sister and her husband) along with a couple of close friends. Yes they’re all still speaking to me and I am thankful for that. Even though I’m not into the whole God thing, I am keenly aware that I’m a very lucky man and want to be in a position of appreciation of that fact. I like that there is a special day for us to count our blessings.

This Thanksgiving, especially, I am thankful for my husband James and the deliciousness he can create from a murdered bird. (Only the good die young, so the saying goes. And for turkeys it’s especially true.) This year I will try to notice things, not just to please him, but because I’ll have to set the record straight when he blogs about me.

And so as a final image for this, my first Thanksgiving blog of the season (a companion blog to James’, who dared me) I give you a picture from my near future.

Here is James, passing out the turkey to my red-skinned family. Do you see the faint, “I hope it’s not too dry, I brined the bird for sixteen hours” look on his face?

Do you see the bowl I’m carrying behind his bustle? I’m doing dishes already. Why, even our dog Rowdy is there!

Doesn’t this look fun? No one has scalped anyone or stolen anyone’s land… Yet…

More to come. Oh yes, James. It’s ON!