At 4:30 on the afternoon before Thanksgiving, Gracie, Abigail and I were at Wal-Mart.  Ummm, yeah, I stay at home all day every day with them - you'd think I'd have managed to get myself to the store more than 7.5 hours before the start of Turkey day.  But, I didn't, and there we were in the midst of the circus that is a grocery store a mere hours before the biggest cooking day of the year.  Some people think that Black Friday is the roughest shopping day of the year.  I don't think so - I think the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is worse, far worse - you could seriously lose an arm if you try and grab someone's bag of stuffing mix or can of jellied cranberries.....

I'll tell you the truth - there aren't many Thanksgiving recipes that I think are worth braving the masses of holiday shoppers.  I'm not a real big fan of turkey or gravy....and cranberries don't do too much for me unless they are in juice form, mixed with grapefruit juice and a bit of vodka (Sea Breeze anyone?)....  But, there are a couple that do make it worthwhile - my dad's Crawfish stuffing and my sister-in-law's Green Bean Casserole (let me tell you, those little Durkee's french fried onion creations have nothing on Barbara's green bean casserole!)  We weren't having my dad's stuffing and Barbara herself was bringing the GBC (thank goodness, 'cause try as I might, my version never quite turns out like hers).  Nope, I was at the store getting the stuff for the one recipe that I would truly brave any shopping nightmare....my mother-in-law's Sweet Potato Casserole.....and I don't even really like sweet potato (give me a good ol' pumpkin any day).  I picked up the corn flakes, the pecans, and the brown sugar that I needed, my mouth almost watering at the thought of tasting it the next day.

Thursday morning I got up early and made up my pumpkin cakes, a few appetizers and my dad's Jezebel sauce.  I decided to wait until just before dinner to make the sweet potato concoction, figuring it would be pure heaven if it came out of the oven just before we ate.  I mixed it up and put it in the oven and headed into the living room to visit.  When I went back in the kitchen, Steve pulled me aside and said, "You do know that sweet potato recipe says to use a small can of evaporated milk, right?"  Umm, of course -  I CAN read.  And I did use a small can...at least the smallest that I could find.  To my credit, I don't cook this recipe often and I always forget what small is, and the can I got was small (compared to say, oh, a gallon of milk)...but evidently, the small can I got was not actually the smallest can of evaporated milk ever made.  There was a difference of, oh, about 7 ounces between the one I got and the one I should have bought....a big difference - like the difference between a soupy, goopy sweet potato mess that will never set and the sweet potato heaven that I was imagining.....a difference that you can clearly see when you have the benefit of comparison...


You can safely bet that I'll be writing 7 oz. can beside the small can of evaporated milk on my recipe.  And you can also safely bet that we did not have Sweet Potato Casserole on Thanksgiving.  At first, I was sad, but then I decided we'd just have the missed casserole today, cooked up with a nice pork tenderloin - I'd rather have pork anyway...and today is just a perfect day to have it because it is my mother-in-law's birthday....and what better way to celebrate a sweet woman than with one of her own sweet recipes....


I love Steve's mom's recipes, mostly because, aside from being delicious, those recipes and pictures and stories from her children are the only way that I know her.  She passed away suddenly several years before I even met Steve.  Now, you know when people ask, "If you could have lunch with one person living or dead, who would it be and why?"  and really erudite people always say things like, "Oh I'd have lunch with Gandhi so I could discuss ways to achieve world peace" and really ummmm, star-struck people say, "Oh I'd have lunch with Elvis so I could listen to him sing me Love Me Tender in his white sequin jumpsuit..."  Well, I think I'd ask to have lunch with my mother-in-law.  Now, I realize that sounds a bit hokey, but really, I'd just like to say thank you to her face to face.  Thanks for making Steve into the man who is my husband.  Thanks for teaching him what it means to honor and love someone.  And, thanks, too, for all the great recipes you shared with your daughters that they so kindly share with me.....and maybe show her a picture of the girls.....




And, I'd really just like to tell her that my greatest wish for her youngest granddaughters is that they grow up and meet someone who was raised as well she raised her youngest son....