it's so much more than cooking

thanksgiving eve salad with sesame chicken for dinner

it's so much more than cooking. i read an article with this title a few weeks ago. with my very domesticated (and wonderful) danish husband, i had to laugh a bit at the issues the author faced. especially when her husband volunteered to make dinner and then didn't shop for any ingredients, but had expected them to magically be in the refrigerator. my husband would know that grocery shopping was part of the deal. without being told. but i will admit that we do mostly divide the cooking along gender lines in our household. especially as the home renovation falls almost entirely on husband's shoulders, it's only fair that i do the bulk of the cooking. and cook i did over the past few days. we invited 10 of our best friends to a thanksgiving feast and it was my best performance ever (all that watching australian master chef is paying off).

my biggest turkey ever! 11 kilos! fresh and delicious. it went into a brine for two days in preparation for its tour in the smoker - our new kamado grill. and yes, that's sabin's first bathtub i used to brine it in.

potted shrimp as an appetizer for people to munch on when they arrived, since that big turkey was going to take forever!

i modified a maple-nutmeg custard pie recipe i found by adding pecans on top. it was delicious! though i was so full, i didn't eat any of it until breakfast the next day.

after two rounds of smoking, the turkey was looking gorgeous.

the skin got a little bit dark and i haven't perfected crispy skin in the smoker, but the meat was juicy and meltingly tender and, if i do say so myself, perfectly smoked.

it was a proud moment as husband took the serving dish to the table. it was so much fun introducing my danish friends to my favorite holiday and sharing this beautiful food with them. it really meant the world.

before i added gravy and a spoonful of stuffing. thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and although it's a lot of work, it's worth every minute. and that nap i took on sunday afternoon was bliss as well. it really is so much more than cooking, it's love and culture and sharing and friendship and happiness as well.

from whence surplus?

i had a long conversation last night about that whole concept of overskudsmennesker (surplus people) and underskudsmennesker (deficit people) that i believe i've mentioned here before. those words are so wonderful and packed with meaning in danish, meaning that's not contained in the literal translation, nor in any more metaphorical one i can come up with. even tho' we lack a word for it, i know you know people in both categories.

overskudsmennesker are largely positive. they have time for things. they are creative and their actions reflect both an open mind and a big heart. they're able to see situations from all sides. they are good at having an overview. when someone presents an idea, they run with it and expand on it, instead of shutting it down or making fun of it.

underskudsmennesker, as you might imagine, are the opposite. they have something negative to say about everything. they aren't open to new ideas and they often are critical naysayers in the face of other people's ideas. they're the ones who you'll hear say, "we tried that before and it didn't work." they are often utterly unable to see a situation from another perspective.

i know i show traits of both at times, because i don't think that anyone is ever always on top of things. we all go up and down, depending on our energy levels. but i've come to think that once again, whether you are generally in surplus has a lot to do with social capital (i know, i'm always bringing it back to that, but i think bourdieu was right). do your background, education, upbringing and situation equip you to deal positively with the world or not? do they enable you to see the big picture? i think for many, the answer is no and it means they wallow in their own perspective and their own negativity, never lifting their head above the horizon to really look at things. never having the surplus to do so.

i don't mean to say that you have to be educated to be happy (tho' somewhere inside i probably do believe that to an extent), but that you need to be equipped with a broad way of looking at things in order to see situations for what they are and not get bogged down in some minute and unimportant detail. one that drains your energy and the energy of those around you.

another thing i've noticed is that when you have many passionate people involved in something, those passions will clash and result in a disturbing draining of energy that leaves everyone feeling like an underskudsmennesker, at least at that moment. great passions are energy dynamos, but that means that they are also energy drains. and sometimes we're so caught up in them we can't see that we crossed the line from surplus to deficit.