Food Trip: The Tastes of Home
From North and from South, come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?
-- John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
Umm, pumpkin pie.
My work suffers when I'm deprived of Thanksgiving leftovers and re-heated holiday fare smothered in micro-waved gravy. Scoff not; I know you secretly relish the trappings and the trimmings of a homemade holiday feast.
For me, a trip home would be rewarded with Velvet Lime Salad (contents happily unknown), green bean casserole crowned with canned crispy-fried onion rings and pecan pie so dense, syrupy and sweet that my pancreas demanded an apology the following day.
This year's holiday travel horror stories have yet to be written, as my Christmas itinerary looms just a few weeks out. That doesn't mean I haven't already heard an earful of seasonal travel tales -- all dispensed within nanoseconds of my query, "How was your trip?" (Danger Will Robinson, danger!)
From this point on, I'm proposing we answer that question one of three ways: 1) fine, 2) challenging or 3) I'll fill you in later. That way should you wish to pursue the details, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Of course when I travel in the coming weeks, I'll be happy to relay every last detail of my transcontinental, multiple-stop, red-eye flights.