Here\u2019s a holiday cooking scenario that I just know you\u2019ve experienced before: You open your favorite cookbook and flip through your favorite dog-eared, food-stained recipes\u2014the ones that your mom and grandmother cooked before you; recipes so familiar you can practically smell the flavors emanating from the pages. So you plan out your Thanksgiving menu to the very last detail, buy all the ingredients and, the night before, start prepping your feast\u2014that is, until the phone rings, and it\u2019s your 14-year-old niece telling you that she\u2019s become a vegan and will not be eating meat or dairy. Can she have Tofurkey instead?<\/p>\n
Then your sister calls to tell you that, in an effort to thwart holiday weight gain, she\u2019s converted to a completely macrobotic diet. Your brother-in-law refuses to eat carbs\u2014only protein\u2014so can the presence of bread and mashed potatoes please be minimal? A great-aunt is allergic to pumpkin; someone else can\u2019t have cinnamon. Pretty soon, your perfect holiday menu has become a Tofurkey-laden, macrobiotic, carb-free, pumpkinless mish-mash\u2014and without any cinnamon to top it all off!<\/p>\n
Believe me, I have so <\/em>been there. For years, I catered my holiday dinner menus to the needs of my guests\u2014to the point where there were sometimes two different kinds of mashed potatoes, two different kinds of cranberry sauces (some prefer fresh, some are Ocean Spray canned purists) and even several different main dishes on the table. Then one year, I realized I was about to pull all my hair out\u2014so I took a deep breath and a step back.<\/p>\n Sure, I thought, the holidays are about food\u2014but most importantly, they\u2019re about being together with family and friends. If you don\u2019t cater to everyone\u2019s tastes, what\u2019s the worst that can happen? After all, you\u2019re the one doing the cooking\u2014so cook for yourself and savor tradition. Cook what you enjoy. Focus on togetherness\u2014chances are, once your family and friends see you doing that, they\u2019ll do it, too.<\/p>\n Happy holiday eating,<\/p>\n Judi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here\u2019s a holiday cooking scenario that I just know you\u2019ve experienced before: You open your favorite cookbook and flip through … <\/p>\n