My Secret Passion

I believe it would very much surprise many of the people who know me to discover what my secret passion is. They could take guesses, but most times they would be wrong.  Even those friends who know me well.

Of course, there are many sides to my personality and over the years different aspects of who I am forges forward to dominate. When these distinct and different urges rumble, I give them the lead and allow them to show themselves to the world, be it painting, writing, fashion, music or whatever want rises forth for recognition.

When something is a secret passion it is usually not known by others, or acknowledged by even ourselves. Hence the word secret.  As a matter of fact, there are times when even we ourselves don’t know that it is a true passion until something triggers the awareness.  Today that happened to me.

I was speaking with my husband, Jim, about Thanksgiving.  My daughter and her husband generously invited us to her house for the day and the Thanksgiving day feast.  We accepted and look forward to the day with the family, however, something nagged at me.  It dawned on me, I would not be cooking a turkey, she would.  That takes something out of the holiday for me.  It leaves it almost two-dimensional.

Not that I love doing all the work it takes to putting together a holiday dinner.  Believe me over some 50 years I have cooked and orchestrated more than three hundred holiday meals for small or large crowds.  I know what it takes, and its exhausting to do it with a flair.  But I realized, and here is where I divulge the secret passion, I love cooking big.  Oh, not all the sides and salads, but a huge turkey, ham, pasta, gravy (sauce for American born), or anything that weighs a ton.

I love cooking a thirty pound ham or turkey that will feed a crowd, even when I need a strong person to help me pick it up.  My passion is that I loveeeee to cook big.  Put that fresh ham on a low heat and bake for six hours.  Baste that turkey every half hour all day and watch it go from a sickly white to a beautiful golden brown.

I am not going to try to psychoanalyze this passion.  I am just going to own it, enjoy it and find a reason to cook a humongous roast.

Buena Appetite!