Thanksgiving

This Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US. It's a big holiday. It works because it's a genuine holiday (unlike Mother's Day, invented by a department store) and it's secular (unlike Christmas). Religious holidays make Americans uneasy with the memory of ancient disputes, memory of a time when the Unitarians and the Quakers and the Baptists and the Methodists and the Congregationalists and the Catholics really didn't get along. (They don't get along now, either, outside the fantasy-life of a few fringe politician-evangelists)

But Thursday's the day for the annual turkey which in my heretical opinion should be cooked on a kettle grill. Put the turkey on at half-time of the first game and it will be ready when everyone arrives. Don't forget pumpkin pie. And cranberry relish (add sugar, orange, Cuisinart. Never use cans.)

I'll be in sunny New Jersey; no updates for a few days and a few hundred miles of driving.