Post-Thanksgiving Grace Period Gluttony

The most beautiful thing about the 24 hours directly following the Thanksgiving holiday is that you float around in a sort of surreal food coma where your body is both in shock from all the food you ate the day before as well as hungry for more. And because it is the 24 hours directly following the holiday, you are allowed a kind of grace period to wean yourself back into the normal realm of diet you are used to while giving you just enough leeway to properly devour and dispense of all the leftovers that have accumulated pushing the limits of your refrigerator door.

This is when all kinds of crazy happenings ensue.

Like taking the random opportunity to consume six peanut butter and cacao nib cookies for breakfast, dunked into exquisite steaming mugs of coffee adorned with all the remaining whipped cream from the night before pies. Of course, you conveniently forget in your tryptophan daze that you had already consumed about 15 of them the day preceding or the night before that in the kitchen of your boyfriend as he lovingly pulled them from a hot oven.

Or deciding to boldly stop off on the way home from relatives’ lodging at the gourmet Greek food store for lunch just to see how their distinct version of comfort food compares to that which you so heartily consumed on your own cultural and historical day. And you discover that yes, the homemade moussaka comes mightily close to a turkey-mashed potato-gravy compiled biscuit with its lasagna-esque, stacked strata of potatoes, ground beef, nutmeg and cream. The dolmadas with acidic grape leaves wrapped around mushy and savory rice reminds you of the starch piles dotted with nary a green from your own aforementioned Thanksgiving plate.

Then you tackle the problem of elevating the turkey leftover beyond the typical dry sandwich or watery-brothed soup or reheated breast smothered in cranberry sauce by the Cute Gardener's version of spontaneous, faux-turkey comfit. It starts with shredded light and dark meat turkey remnants poached in olive oil so that they turn rillette-like, smoky, dense and rich. Added to this are hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and fresh minced garlic and basil, tossed together over perfectly al dente linguine…

…and served alongside a Chinese sup-choy…so at least you get the greens you’ve been lacking to start the veer back on to your normal course of eating….

You gain five pounds but you don’t care. It will go away over the ebb and flow of the next few weeks when your body and chemistry return to normal.