Lowered Expectations

Do you remember that bit on MAD TV where they did horrible dating videos? (Side Note: If you have Comcast or Xfinity or whatever they call themselves now, you can watch dating videos on their local on demand programming. All the videos here are Detroit local and while I feel guilty about it…I do laugh hysterically at every single one.)  The sketches weren’t funny all the time but what I remember was the softly sung 90’s jingle with the couple walking towards the barb wire fence. Every time I think about my Thanksgiving dinner this year that little jingle sings in my head “Lowered Expectations!”

I’ve been searching for cookbooks for my aunt and have kept a few for myself. I’m not a great cook, but I do enjoy challenges and I do like making food for my family. I’ve experimented with some recipes this year that have not sent anyone to the emergency room, so I was pretty excited about Thanksgiving. It’s a day devoted to cooking and eating and just seemed ripe for me to get my chef on.

Unfortunately, it’s a pretty standard fare around these parts. Turkey – slap some olive oil on the bird and stick it in the oven. Stuffing? It doesn’t get better than Stove Top. Cranberry sauce: we’ve had both canned and relish over the years and I’ve eaten neither. Gross. Give me my cranberries in a muffin form only please! As I got to thinking about it, the only things that I could conceivably experiment with were mashed potatoes and dessert. I scoured the internet for potato recipes. Mashed, baked, twice baked, jacket, fried, scalloped, and a multitude of other ways to cook ze pomme du terre. I really liked the creamy garlic mashed potato recipes, or the super delicious looking jacket potatoes.

As for dessert, I really wanted to make a pie. Apple, to be exact. For some reason, apple pie is the epitome of a perfect dessert. I think it’s just because it’s so iconic, not necessarily because it’s the tastiest dessert ever. I’ve always wanted to make an apple pie from scratch, peeling the apples in my sunny kitchen, wearing a frilly apron and smiling at my adoring husband and perfect children…and you know what, this fantasy might be about more than just dessert.

So my first step in pie-making was looking up recipes online. Do you know how many recipes there are for pie? Many. A multitude. A plethora of pie procedures. (HA!) After being overwhelmed I attempted to pick just a few recipes (ones that had “easy” in the title) and see what I could do. Which turns out, not a lot. I know how to cook…and sorta bake…but the instructions for these pies were not easy. In fact, that whole “easy as pie” saying is a lie. Pie is not easy at all. It’s full of sifting flour and crimping and tears. Despite my pie-in-the-sky (ha again!) dreams of baking from scratch, I decided to spend my thanksgiving not sabotaging myself.

But tonight I am packing a bag full of ‘stuff’ (scientific term) to take with me tomorrow so that I can experiment with mashed potatoes. Garlicy stuff, ranch flavored stuff and normal loaded potato stuff! It might not be the Julia Child/Martha Stewart masterpiece I wanted, but it’s more attainable and hopefully attainability will make my Thanksgiving much more enjoyable!