Sweet Irony

One time for Thanksgiving my family went up to our cabin and spent the holiday with my dad's brother Jeff and his family. We were not used to spending a Thanksgiving dinner away from my maternal grandmother's house, we always spent every Thanksgiving there. We always knew exactly what to expect because we had been going there forever; the adults sat in the formal dining room and the kids sat at their own 'kid table' in the kitchen. We were all okay with sitting at the kid table because it was tons of fun. My aunts all seemed to have a specialty dish for Thanksgiving and they would usually bring the same thing every year.

This year at the cabin was different. There was no kids table, and there was no set tradition to follow. My mom and my Aunt Heidi had both brought their 'half' of the feast. Aunt Heidi brought something that none of my siblings or I had ever even heard of; candied yams. About mid-way through the meal Heidi noticed that none of us took any of the yams, so she picked them up, walked around the room and plopped some on to each of our plates. Being defiant kids, I don't think that any of us even touched those yams, they all ended up in the trash. Heidi noticed this detail and was disappointed because she said that this was 'grandma's candied yam recipe'.

Ever since that day I have never had to deal with any form candied yams, until last night. For Enrichment last night one of my couselor's wanted to have a gratitude dinner. We all thought it was a great idea. She organized the dinner nicely by writing down all of the items she usually had for Thanksgiving and then assigning each sister to bring a certain dish. I bet you can guess what I was assigned to bring. I got home from school and made this huge dish of candied yams (it actually looked almost identical to the picture above, that's even what my counter top looks like). I felt bad because I had no idea exactly what they were supposed to taste like. Lucky for me my mom and sister provided me with a great recipe that turned out just fine. I tried candied yams last night for the first time. Sorry I didn't eat them sooner Heidi, they're not half bad.

Next week's culinary challenge: my Aunt Connie wants me to make a sweet potato pie and a lemon meringue pie. Sounds like a good challenge right? At least I've had both of these pies before!