The Thanksgiving of the BBQ Shrimp
Did your family have family traditions growing up? I’m sure most of you did even if they weren’t elaborate—I wouldn’t say any of ours were super elaborate. Most of them were simple: choosing your birthday dinner, finding presents waiting at the breakfast table that morning, macaroni and cheese for dinner whenever we had a babysitter, or an Easter egg hunt on Easter. We’d decorate the Christmas tree together and we’d fill out Valentines cards for our classes each February. Family traditions don’t have to be complicated or hard to pull off, but traditions are so important. Research shows that simple family traditions give kids a sense of stability, something to count on and look forward to. Pizza and a movie every Friday night, watching the Santa tracker on Christmas Eve, pancakes for breakfast on Saturdays or doughnuts after church each Sunday—none of these are complicated or take much effort or money, but they are so important when it comes to helping a family form who they are. Traditions give a family their story—even the tradition of telling the same family stories at each gathering is meaningful, reminding those listening of their past, of shared moments and memories.
I don’t know that I could really pick a favorite holiday—I love so many things about each of them. But one of my favorite times of year has always been Thanksgiving. I don’t know that I have any memories of Thanksgiving at home, every year we’d drive from Sacramento two hours up the mountains to Reno to visit my cousins. My mom or my grandma would often host our extended family Christmas gatherings we always had on the 27th or 28th of December each year, but Thanksgiving was always at Aunt Ginny’s. She always had a table full of food and we always used the nice china and real silver that had to be hand washed and dried (a job us kids remember well!). Her table would be set in beautiful fall colors and the menu was always the same—mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, corn (except for the one year she forgot to buy the corn, which you would have thought was a mortal sin the way everyone was shocked and appalled!), dinner rolls, green bean casserole, stuffing, of course a turkey and the all important bowl of homemade cranberry sauce that my cousin Brian and I would set between us and hope no one else at the table wanted any. To this day we each text each other pictures of our cranberries every Thanksgiving to say “wish you were here!” I don’t know that we ever really did anything special other than hang out together that weekend, go on walks, watch football and movies and gather around the table--Thursday night in the formal dining room and Friday afternoon in the kitchen around the Tupperware containers of leftovers, but I do know that I loved those weekends together.
One year, the oven broke on Thanksgiving. Thanks to the convection microwave and the stove top the side dishes were all cooked but the turkey wasn’t made. That was the year they threw shrimp and filet Mignon on the BBQ and served it alongside the Thanksgiving side dishes. And you know what? It was perfect. A turkey doesn’t make or break Thanksgiving, we still had the same people I adored gathered around the same table and the same plethora of pies to choose from for dessert. Now that all of us “kids” are grown with families of our own we don’t get to celebrate the holidays with all my cousins anymore—we’re with our own families and kids and in laws. I’ve hosted Thanksgiving several times—sometimes for family, sometimes for friends, and every time I get caught up in wanting it to be “perfect.” And every year I have to remind myself a perfect meal isn’t what makes the holiday, it’s about the people you’re gathering around your table and the stories you’re going to share with one another that makes a holiday sacred. One year I hosted Thanksgiving for a sweet family from church and they brought with them a friend and we had the best conversations about what “traditional Thanksgiving foods” were in their families and parts of the country they were each from. It wasn’t until I got married that I realized many families in the south serve white rice with their holiday meals instead of mashed potatoes. I learned from a friend that jello with red hot candies in it is a traditional dish to have on their Thanksgiving table (he brought some to that dinner I hosted and the next year Aidan wanted to know where the spicy jello was and why I didn’t make any that year). We all have a different set of ideas in mind as we think about the upcoming holidays. I don’t know what we’re doing for Thanksgiving this year but I do know I want to remember it doesn’t have to be perfect to be a great day. I’m so so grateful for the many Thanksgivings I spent in Reno over the years but I think the Thanksgiving of the BBQ shrimp might have been my favorite because out of all the years it stands out to me as the one that taught me it wasn’t about perfection, it was about the people gathered around the room.
We all have our favorite holiday recipes. I’ve made mention that cranberries are essential at my table but the recipe is on the back of the package and only requires water and sugar so that’s not really a recipe worth sharing here! The other dish that needs to be on my Thanksgiving table is a sweet potato dish that changed my life. Growing up we always had sweet potatoes baked with the marshmallows on top. Which means I would eat the marshmallows and that was it. I didn’t like either the texture or sweet flavor of the yams so I made it into my 20s before I realized you could cook sweet potatoes a different way. One holiday my mom made this dish—she got the recipe from my great-aunt and it’s made all of us who formerly hated sweet potatoes huge converts. It’s a savory dish, using salt, pepper, cream, parmesan cheese and a tiny dash of cayenne to bring out the savory side of this vegetable. My kids both love this, it’s super easy and goes with really any holiday menu. Give it a try sometime this fall, I promise you won’t be disappointed!
3 TBSP butter
4 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled & cut into ¾ in thick slices
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Preheat oven to 400.
Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish w/ 1 tbsp butter.
Arrange a third of the sweet potatoes, overlapping slightly in the dish.
Sprinkle w/ ¼ cup cheese.
Repeat with two more layers of sweet potatoes and cheese.
In small bowl combine cream, salt, pepper & cayenne. Pour over potatoes. Dot with the remaining 2 tbsp butter.
Cover dish w/ foil & bake 20 min.
Remove foil & continue baking until sweet potatoes are tender & top is browned—20-25 minutes.
