Happy Thanksgiving to all of you chefs out there. As I told you: Halloween is my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving sort-of comes next, because of the spiritual gratitude part of it, but it is so exhausting! Three days of constant food shopping, baking and cooking, and in less than two hours, happy hour included, everyone sits down, heads gracefully bowed in a moment of gratefulness for their abundance, hopefully not forgetting the oppressed folk in Haiti who are experiencing a cholera epidemic, much less hungry … then it’s over. Clean-up begins. 
This year because my husband has a j-o-b (! one of the things we are most grateful for), we can’t make the drive to San Diego till late tonight. So I get out of all the usual pre-preparation that I usually do. We’re still on duty for the stuffing and baking the turkey in a Weber grill that keeps Larry from watching foot-a ballll, because he has to drop charcoal in the bottom every 20 minutes for 4 hours … but hey, I get off easy this year and can just enjoy the Ventana Chardonnay we bought a case of for his 84 year old now single mother, and the new relatives, including a 3 year old great grandson on Larry’s side of the family. Blessings to all of you … no matter what your year has been like: find all the good that you can in it no matter how hard times have been, and show some love, at home as well as ‘out there’ to people who most need and least expect it.