Marshmallows are a relatively easy thing to make. Bloom some gelatine, make a sugar mixture, add the two together and presto you have marshmallows. It's fun...simple, fast and they are really, really good. And when you do this....you can make changes to the taste. For instance...if you wanted a peppermint flavored marshmallow then all you have to do is add peppermint flavored extract. Do you get my drift? Varieties are endless.
I'm not all that concerned with Thanksgiving and being without Mother. That's because years ago when we all started getting married and started to have whole other families involved...Mother decided that to make things easier on us...they (she and Dad) would travel to Vegas to have Thanksgiving with my younger brother and his wife. This worked out wonderfully for us not having to decide whos house to go to or worse..have to eat two meals. And like I say...it worked wonderfully for years...then there was the year that Bob's mother got sick. I kept asking her to allow me to do Thanksgiving dinner. We had the room and the time and all she would have to do is sit back and enjoy. She staunchly refused and then called us the night before and told us that she would not be able to do it. We'd been invited to several other Thanksgiving dinners but had turned them down because Polly was going to do it. I don't feel like it's proper manners to call someone up the night before and say..."Hey, our plans have changed...do you still have room". To be honest...most people probably wouldn't bat an eyelash at that and they'd all have enough for us to eat...but it's still not polite and so we decided that we'd just do our own thing...
So with the weather being pretty nasty...cold and wet....we headed out in jeans and sweats to see what was open. We had to travel down the interstate into the next town and we found some sort of family eatery....not cafeteria style but something similar and we had what had to be the worst Thanksgiving Dinner EVER!!!!
I swore up and down that this was never going to happen again and that Polly would just have to give up and I wouldn't take no for an answer. Not 4 months later Polly died and I said to Bob..."I don't care who you invite, just start inviting people and we'll feed them. And so he did and that is the beginning of what we like to call "The Stray Table".
So this is for people who would rather not go to families (for whatever reason) and it's for our friends, and it's for people who don't have anywhere else to go.
We've had as many at 22 and we've had as little as 10. All different people from all walks of life. The conversation is always lively and interesting and I work my butt off...but it makes me happy.
So Daddy heads to Vegas tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family and today I began the initial prep work for Thanksgiving.
If you celebrate...Have a wonderful Thanksgiving...if you don't have anyplace to go...come on by...we'll be more than happy to feed you.
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