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Giving Thanks
Long before I understood the symbolic meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday, I was thankful for the food. An appreciation for food and everything about it from where it was sourced, how it was prepared, how it was served and perhaps most important of all, how grateful I needed to be for it was an undeniably vivid part of my childhood. Is it any wonder that I would grow up and marry a man that would become a chef, and that in him I would witness the same deep-rooted passion and love of transforming good food into great meals, just as I had first witnessed with my father, the unofficial chef of our family. And while my Dad's culinary education was not formal; not one from a prestigious academy that earned him a degree, one could say that perhaps his was the best kind of food education, taught in the soulful southern kitchen of his beloved grandmother, my great-grandmother Lacie. Lacie McNair's skills went well beyond the kitchen, but it was there that I believe she did some of her best work.
How was it possible to cook four, five, or sometimes six different dishes simultaneously? How did she even do that? And how was it that after spending so many hours in a slightly cramped kitchen with a very old stove and a screened door that led to the back porch where she would occasionally step out "to get a little fresh air, Baby!" the perfect meal was revealed? Everything was hot, including her made from scratch golden brown biscuits, and the entire house was flooded with aromas that made that modest brick dwelling feel palatial.
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