First published in a 1950s Good Housekeeping Magazine, these candy cane cookies are tender and have a surprisingly complex and subtle flavor. I’ve made a small change with the fat, but otherwise these cookies are the same that my mother and grandmother have been making every winter for as long as I can remember.

The Thanksgiving of my childhood is blanched, salted almonds, smooth on the tongue and crunchy on the teeth. It is cranberry, orange, and jalapeño salsa and stuffing cooked both in and outside of the bird. It is Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider and pumpkin chiffon pie and lumpy potatoes and green beans sautéed in butter and then splashed with white wine. When I was a kid, my mother and grandmother traded years hosting the meal and cooking the bird. Our family lived within moments of each other, so sharing was easy and travel was light. When it was my mother’s turn to cook the great beast, she and I started right after breakfast, washing the massive thing and patting it dry. I named them all after Flintsones characters.

The Thanksgiving of my childhood is elaborate centerpieces and synthetic fall leaves and wild quail cooing on the patio while we ate. Thanksgiving is my grandfather methodically wielding his ancient electric carving knife. Thanksgiving was Christmas’ less-stressful older sibling, a rehearsal for the silverware; it was more cooking, but also more lounging around.

We had all of the usual characters every year, unfailingly, until my older brother’s junior year of college when he decided that two trips from the east coast in two months was too much. We didn’t blame him for missing our holiday and when he called, the telephone was passed all around the table so that everyone could say hello and tell him what a great supper he had just missed. When I finally left the nest, I returned for Thanksgiving and for Christmas, unable to imagine passing the holidays in any other way. For years, my brother stayed east and crashed the feast at our second cousin’s house, relaying stories at Christmas about pampered dogs, See’s candy, and lobsters. We preferred to imagine him among relatives, however distant, than alone in his Brooklyn apartment with a turkey pot pie (which also happened at least once).

My Thanksgivings in the last years have been mixed. Three years ago, I dined with a friend’s family, marveling at their novel traditions. The next day I ate a slice of leftover pie with my parents, and it wasn’t until then that the celebration felt whole. Last year a girlfriend and I ate Jake’s Grill together, unable to gather enough of our friends to justify the preparation of a “proper” Thanksgiving meal. Once, I held a potluck at my house, opening my kitchen to the orphans of my social circle, which was just about everyone. I stayed home alone all day to cook, and in the evening the place filled with laughing friends and lots of pie. It didn’t even matter that I didn’t own enough chairs.

In keeping with the popular twenty-something state of limbo, I am again this year doing something completely different: nothing. The plan to do nothing has gone through a number of revisions. At first, the plan was a hosted breakfast in the morning and a potluck in the evening. Then the plan shrunk to just the evening potluck, featuring my very first pumpkin pie. It was then downgraded to only pie, but the Pie Plan expanded to include pecan and apple. Later, Pie was shifted from Thursday to Saturday to accommodate work schedules and competing Thanksgiving commitments. And now my schemes have been scrapped all together and I am looking forward to a quiet day at home.

I suppose that this is all a part of growing up or something, leaving my parents’ house for good and retooling these celebrations to fit into my adult life. I sometimes think that I would like to be the sort of person who hosts an elaborate Thanksgiving feast for my friends. And sometimes I think that I would like to be the sort of person who volunteers her time to cook or serve at a kitchen for the Less Fortunate. It seems, however, that at present anyway, I am neither.

I think tomorrow I will go sit in someone else’s kitchen while she cooks dinner, just for the contact high. I will wake early and make coffee, and maybe scones . I will write and pet the cats and smile at the Squeeze and sometime toward the middle of the day I will drive out to Vancouver and get a little peek of someone else’s Thanksgiving, chatting while I watch her baste the bird. And when I am back at home and hungry, I will raid the fridge for leftovers or maybe go out for Chinese. I’ll call my family in the evening when I think they’ve had their fill, and hear about what an excellent meal I’ve just missed. And it won’t make me sad or lonely, only maybe a little reflective about what the Feast can mean for me, what I want from it and how much I am willing to put into one meal. That, more than any of the others, sounds like a tradition I can stick with.

I do believe I said once that Thanksgiving is all about family and food for me – the whole pilgrims-and-indians jig is up, right? I mean, the third thursday in November doesn’t have much to do anymore with pioneers, hardship, or cultural synergy, does it? In my mind, anyway, it’s about gathering, neuroses, making a mess of the kitchen, sparkling apple juice, being with family, gluttony, praise. It’s not Thanksgiving unless someone’s flight is delayed, unless Mom or I cry over the pie crust, unless there’s at least a chance the turkey will hit the floor. We all have those special family traditions to hang on to, to keep us aglow with the holiday spirit through the darkness and the damp of fall and winter.

Two years ago I had my first Thanksgiving away from my own nuclear unit – different faces, traditions. Different food. It never occurred to me until then that other people would have ham, say, instead of crab; or that a table could be set sans blanched almonds. The tofurkey was a big surprise, too. But that meal was delicious, and the family was warm. Just like my immediate clan, there were certain dishes they had to have, traditions they wanted to follow, neuroses they had to appease. I called my parents when the meal was over to make sure they had saved a slice of Grandma Alice’s pumpkin chiffon pie for me. It wasn’t until the next day when I ate it that the holiday felt complete.

Last year the holiday transformed again. Up here in ol’ PDX we have a bit of a Central Cali enclave. Half a dozen of us knew each other from working at or patronizing a certain Monterey coffee shop – family in a different sense, though nonetheless important or dear. We set on having a meal of our own – a potluck Thanksgiving for friends new and old, anyone who didn’t want to trek back home or had no home to trek back to. A year ago, we were potluck rockstars. Invitations issued at one in the afternoon saying only, “Come over tonight” often produced impromptu bar-be-cues of the finest caliber. Being a bunch of foodies, it was hard to have a flop.

And so it was last Thanksgiving. Eight arrived in time for a sit-down meal in the front room of the dangerously-leaning downtown Victorian my then-partner and I shared. Others trickled in throughout the evening for drinks and nibbles. It was a magnificent feast of mismatched essentials, food-memories from a dozen households. I had spent all day in the kitchen producing my favorites: the almonds, cranberry and orange salsa, wild rice with onions. We had a traditional bird and a tofurkey; at least two kinds of pie, and candied green beans that put me over the moon. I felt last year that I had inducted myself into a special circle of women, cooks, hearth-tenders. I was hostess to a Thanksgiving meal; my local beloved in my house, laughing. Happy.

Yesterday the holiday turned over again. I had debated for weeks whether or not to host a meal in my new home. I have this dining room, see – an actual whole room just for eating – and it seemed quite obvious and appropriate that I would break it in with a homeful of friends and food. But the troops were not rallied in time, and my beloved scattered about the city to other homes and other traditions. It was one part disappointment and five million parts relief. These papers, I thought. I can just hole-up while the rest of the world parties and I can write these darned papers and have a long weekend of peace – without delayed flights or polishing silver or crying with Mom in the kitchen over pie crusts. And there would be no huge pile of dishes on Friday morning, and no stains to scrub out of the table cloth. This year it felt OK to plan a quiet night. I would be thankful for peace and productivity. But no one likes to think of an “orphan” on Thanksgiving, and so the invitations dribbled in.

Lady J spent $90 on specially ordered organic, free-range, and emotionally stable turkey. D has a standing annual date with his out-of-state friends at the Marrakesh. K called a few weeks ago and asked if we could just go out somewhere, anything so that we could call it a holiday. I am no fan of double-booking an evening, but I thought I could make it to two events provided, of course, that one were amply late in the day. And I would have passed the afternoon in J’s kitchen, chatting and laughing as we always do (and of course ogling and nibbling at the WonderTurkey), had it not been for a small, white, innocuous-looking muscle relaxer that put me out for the better part of Wednesday and turned my legs (and my head) to Jell-O until well into Thursday afternoon. I’ll just say, though this has nothing to do with food or my feelings about Thanksgiving, that expiration dates of prescription drugs should maybe be taken seriously.

Yesterday I woke early and puttered on my computer, read the news, brewed many pots of coffee. I edited the grant I’ve been working on; I shuffled and unshuffled class notes. I made turkey tacos for myself for lunch (an unplanned irony), and ate them standing in my quiet, clean kitchen. My mom emailed me a photo of her centerpiece, titled “Minus 7 and counting.” When I called and they passed the phone around, I missed them. Of course I did. I sure am getting a lot of attention, my brother said. E came over midday for breakfast and recipe hunting and was soon off to a meal at someone else’s house, where he intended to douse the candied yams in flaming rum. My family loves you, he told me on his way to my kitchen. And then I started to miss them, too.

By seven the rain stopped and I was out the door to finally have my celebratory meal – Jake’s Grill with Lady K. Jake’s, if you have not been, feels substantial. It’s in downtown Portland, on 10th, in Governor Hotel. Marketed as a steaks’n'chops “comfort food” spot, it is, as far as I am concerned, over-priced and under-inspired. And I hate, hate, having to pay extra for a side of veggies. However, Jake’s is gorgeous. The servers are in white jackets and black ties. The floor is hex tile. Dark wood carved pillars (or columns – what’s the difference, anyway?) stretch up to the super-tall ceiling. And the food is gorgeous, too – it all looks and tastes just like you’re expecting it to: nothing to worry about. First on their Thanksgiving menu was roasted turkey, etc., which K ordered. I had a a piece of salmon, beurre rouge, spuds. The food was fine; the Syrah was great, and I got to sit and talk with my good friend who I don’t see nearly enough.

I left the restaurant feeling empowered, free. This could be my new tradition, I thought. To hell with the stress and the anxiety and the mess and trying to please everyone. My high didn´t last long, though. Maybe I need a few more years of experiment: more friends, different restaurants, no deadlines looming, but I don´t think I am ready to give up the mess, the neuroses, the warmth, my traditions. I never for a moment thought that the bird might slip from greasy potholders and bounce on the tile – and it just didn’t feel the same. And I can make Alice’s pumpkin chiffon pie any day of the year if I want to, but it won’t taste the same without staring at Mom’s centerpiece or drinking coffee with ground cinnamon or – or the kind of warmth you can’t create in a restaurant. Family meals are intimate, aren’t they? – not meant to be delivered by harried servers who are too busy to make eye contact.

In writing this, I keep changing my mind. It’s all about the food, I want to say. I am attached to these cultural markers inherited from my family of origin. They signify decades of predictable celebration. They mean we are all here together, that we have taken the time out of our lives apart from one another to be together. And it could be May or October or the third Thursday in November. Like a seder, we eat this meal for its symbolism – because it helps us focus on these valuable intangibles.

But then I begin to argue with myself. Are you mad? I begin. Like any object, food only has the power and the meaning that you give it. Eat pickles and calzone on Thanksgiving. Eat them in a box with a fox; or on a train in the rain – just don’t forget that feeling.

These are in-between years, I think. I haven’t lived with my parents for ages, but I don’t fully reside in my own home either. I may inhabit these rooms, even one designated just for eating, but my heart, especially in the winter, is running up and down the West Coast. These are in-between years of deciding how my life will be, I think; and this includes tradtitions and values. In defining and re-defining these preferences it’s not surprsing that I seem a bit adrift. Maybe Food v. Feelling is a false dichotomy; maybe they cannot be separated, especially in one so dedicated to both food and warm fuzzy feelings as I am.

I can say one thing for sure: I do miss the leftovers.

Procedure:

1. Using the paddle attachment of your fabulous stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add molasses and eggs and stir to mix thoroughly.
3. Sift together all dry ingredients and add to the molasses mixture.
4. Stir until thoroughly combined.
5. Dough should be soft and smooth.
6. Chill at least thirty minutes.
7. Form dough into balls approximately 1″ – 1 ½” in diameter.
8. Roll balls in white sugar or turbinado or demera sugar.
9. Bake on nonstick baking sheet at 350º F. until edges are firm.