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By Coulter Fussell
It’s a cold week ahead here in the hills and my wintertime weekly soup adventures are continuing — this time with chicken tortilla. It’s a flavorful and healthy choice but, I must admit, just makes me wish I was eating a bowl of piping hot nachos instead. If I’m being honest, I typically put so many nacho chips on top of my chicken tortilla soup as a garnish that it would probably be more accurately termed wet nachos soup which sounds terrible but is, in fact, terribly delicious.
It’s hard to believe I’m discussing food mere days after Thanksgiving. I ate so much dressing and gravy that I had to walk it off. Literally. I walked down to Crawford Sports Complex after Thanksgiving dinner purely out of fear that if I didn’t do otherwise then I might never move again. It felt like the door to mobility was closing fast — in a permanent manner — and that I needed to stick my foot in it before I was sofa-ridden for life. The smartest thing I did was not the walking, though. It was the eating Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law’s house and not taking home any leftovers. Although I suffered deep, sincere regrets at leaving the leftover dressing behind, I did accrue the health benefits of only eating that meal once. I’m not sure I made the best decision, though, like on an emotional level.
A phenomenon I’ve always found worth deeper academic study is how many times in one week people will eat a Thanksgiving meal. I worked many years at Ajax Diner in Oxford where we served turkey and dressing as a lunch option every day of the year. The meal was terrific but never sold in the way of its more luminary cousins, country fried steak and chicken-n-dumplins.
However, we never served more plates of turkey and dressing than we did the day before Thanksgiving. And it wasn’t just to random Thanksgiving Day workers who would miss the meal otherwise. It was whole families! Babies to Uncles to Memaws! And while every one of us knowing that they would eat the very same thing in less than 24 hours and then eat it four more times, in various forms, before the week was up. Collectively devoting an entire week of our lives to one, single food (obviously, it’s the Dressing) is probably one of the coolest things we do as a people, I’d say.
Another cool thing we do is football even though the Ole Miss/State game was a total snoozefest. The best parts were the awkward four-wheeler entry and then when it was all over and Ole Miss had won. Everything else in the middle was filler. Sort of like if SEC football was a thanksgiving plate — the Egg Bowl was the prerequisite, lukewarm green bean casserole. The Iron Bowl, on the other hand … that was the Dressing with Giblet Gravy! And that touchdown pass to the corner was a slice of cranberry sauce in a Sister Shubert roll!
Lastly, if you’re nosey/into history like I am then don’t forget to sign up for the Tour of Homes hosted by the Chamber of Commerce! Saturday Dec 9th. Wristbands for the event can be purchased at GG’s Flowers and Gifts. See ya there!
