Random Recipe Post: Historical Thanksgiving Menus

This Thanksgiving, I was ruminating on our food traditions, how it seems like it's the same every year.  Not that I'm complaining! I love Thanksgiving supper soooooooooooo much. Turkey is my favorite. I love leftovers - cold turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, and bowls full of literally everything (mashed potatoes on bottom, then green beans, then cranberry, then turkey, gravy on top - oh mama).

After a little research, I figured out that the menu's been the same since...well, since forever! The ladies over at Inn at the Crossroads found a menu from 1779 that featured "Haunch of Venison, Roast Chine of Pork, Roast Turkey, Pigeon Pasties, Roast Goose, Onions in Cream, Cauliflower, Squash, Potatoes, Raw Celery, Mincemeat Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie, Indian Pudding, Plum Pudding, (and) Cider." That's way more (and way more meat) than I've ever had, but it seems the basics, like turkey, squash, potatoes, cider, and pumpkin and apple pies were there from the beginning, and as any Wisconsinite can tell you, Venison is a Thanksgiving tradition, too!

Anyway, although the basics have been the same, I thought it might be fun to construct a couple menus featuring recipes, cooking methods, and supplies from our nation's past. I have one menu from each century. I will admit that in order to make the recipes distinct, I started to ignore old standbys, but I think I've done a good job balancing the traditional with the merely old-timey. I haven't done extensive research, but I've spent a good day or so on each one.  If anyone has any suggestions for additions or improvements, let me know! I found the project really diverting, and am thinking about maybe attempting these menus when I have kids, as a little history learning exercise once a year or so.

On Memory, Inevitability, and Healing from Wounds You Didn't Know You Had

(Consider this a warning, both for the length of this post, and for triggering material)

If I could go back in time, there are not many things I'd change.  Mostly because you can't know how little changes might affect you, and in making changes to my past, I'd be killing myself.  Which is all nonsense, as every time I see sci-fi shows where someone is faced with helping the heroes put back the past, they struggle with the knowledge that they will kill themselves in the process, and I think, "Well that's dumb.  Don't they know it's better this way?"  But that's not the point.  Better or not, at the end, you become a new person, and whoever you would have become down that alternate timeline, whether they liked themselves or not, whether they were a good person or not, they are dead.  Chances are, it was not so straightforward - everyone is a mix of good and bad, everyone likes and dislikes themselves or part of themselves at times.  Maybe weathering this battle made them better and stronger, and although the whole world is better because the battle never happened, something will be missing from this version of that one person.  They are dead.
If I could go back in time, I've said before that there were things about my wedding I would change.  Certain things that I had fixed in my head that were unnecessary, because at the time, I was a staunch traditionalist.  I still am, in my way.  I debated for a long time whether to have my mom or my step-dad walk me down the aisle.  My mom has been there for me forever.  She's always been my primary parent.  At the same time, my step-dad and I had formed a close bond, and he had been my dad for 20 years.  I chose him, in my own way symbolically adopting him.  I chose him.
When he walked me down the aisle, he was already cheating on my mom.  He was already in the process of ruining everything.  When it all came out, the world fell down around my ears - the narratives I'd built up about second chances, about religious conversion, about all kinds of things.  For those reasons, I would go back and not choose him.  For a while, I thought I should have chosen my mom.  Now, I think, I would choose no one.

Once Upon a Time, My Life

I really should have known that adjusting to a new position would hinder my ability to write as often as I'd like.  However, I'm getting better at the job and just adjusting in general - not that the job is that hard or that stressful, just that things need adjusted to, I guess, so I've been coming home for 3 months with no desire to cook or write or interact with humans or do anything other than watch tv or play video games.  And that's ok.
I sometimes worry that being ok with my own laziness will carry me away.  My mom always complains that I'm not "ambitious," but I do like to always be looking for that "next thing" - graduated HS, next is college; out of college, next is job; have husband, next is baby; have job, next is promotion; have degree, next is grad school - and on and on ad infinitum.  It is so. gorram. hard. for me to just enjoy life at the point it is now.  It's partially Adventure! and partially Anxiety! and partially Boredom! - no, wait, just boredom.  Stillness is not in my nature.  So to sit and chill seems like a great concession for me.
At the same time, movement for the sake of movement hardly counts as anything.  That's what I feel like I'm doing.  The next thing, the next thing, the next thing - what is that thing?  Doesn't matter.  It's Next.  New.  Different.  Sometimes I feel like a hamster on a wheel.  And when a hamster climbs off the wheel and chills with his water bottle in his little blue plastic hut, has he deserved his rest?
IDK, MAN!
I fear that I am too careful with myself.  Since finding out about my mental illness, since I started getting migraines, I give myself permission to rest.  I let myself rely on Husband for things that stress me out (like leaving the house - I go to work, I come home.  He does the shopping, he runs the errands, etc.).  I give myself permission to flake out on plans when having friends is just too much for me.  It's true that I have some conditions, and it's true that I work hard, and it's true that I have been perhaps too self-reliant for too long, but I worry that if I give myself enough leeway, I'll collapse into a pile of useless mush or something.  (That happens to people, right?)
THEN AGAIN, I got a new job, then a year later, got a promotion.  I'm only 3 months in.  I'm just now getting to the point of comfortableness, and I'm coming back out of my shell a little.  Adjustment is hard, and it's been a busy year-or-so for adjustments.  Maybe I need to lay off myself.

Anyway, here's my latest slew of quarter-life crises for your enjoyment:

On "Encouragement"

Hi,

I am a member of the Bd. of Elders at GS [that's my church. Don't worry, it took me a second, too] and want to encourage you to take advantage of the blessings to worship and commune at GS. Our records show that Linfalas last attended church on 4/5/15 and last communed on 9/14/14. Husband last attended GS on 5/31/15 and last communed on 5/10/15. There may be a mistake in our records but this is what they show.

Both of you know how important it is to stay close to your Savior. He has done great things for all of us and we are forever grateful. Attending church and communing regularly is clearly a way of demonstrating our love and thankfulness and is a fruit of our faith. This Sunday we will celebrate the Lord's Supper at all of our services. Please make an effort to attend Sunday or in the very near future.

May God bless you.
[NAME REDACTED]

Recipe Post: Random-Shit-I-Found-in-My-House Soup...Mmm!

Oh man, you guys.  I am a mad genius.

Growing up, I was always amazed by my mom's ability to throw some random leftovers together and make something more delicious out of them.  She's  mad wizard - Fact.  I've been getting better at this skill since I've been cooking regularly (even though I almost always cook using some kind of recipe template because I love to explore - but leftovers are a different business.)

So anyway, I was always jealous, but I no longer need to be.  I just made the best soup.  (Though, lesbianest, soup is hard to fuck up.  Sshhh.)  However, since I'm a storyteller, let me guide you through the process of mad science:

Step 1: Realize that your husband is too lazy to tear chunks of fully-cooked chicken off the carcass to stuff into his face, and therefor your leftover roast chicken will just never get eaten if you don't step in.  Decide to make soup out of it, even though Husband doesn't like soup, because you're hungry and lazy.

On Art and Universality

Ugh, my life.

You'd think that for how busy I've kept myself for the last 7 years, doing ONLY ONE THING would just be so relaxing and time would float by like a pea blossom borne aloft on a summer's breeze.  Actual fact: Despite not being in school and despite not planning a wedding and despite not renovating a house and despite only working full-time, I feel like this past year has flown by with preternatural speed.  TIME, man.  It keeps HAPPENING.
As a result, there are quite a few people that I just haven't gotten around to seeing all year, and I finally cracked and broke my "post a blog post at least once a month please, slacker," routine.
I'm still plugging away at grad school research and whatnot, which is an anxiety attack for another day.  I'm also still seeking a new church, which is just so much harder than I thought it was going to be.  (That's not to say that I'm going back.  I'm never going back.)
Today, I want to talk about ART again, because I've had further thoughts.