Thanksgiving 2021: Back Together Again

Thanksgiving Day is upon us once more. Thank God that the 2021 version is going to be much better than its 2020 counterpart. That’s not to say 2021 as a whole has been better than 2020, because it really hasn’t. At least not in my world. Another death in the family, a horrendous basement flood, a car accident for my mom, and lots of smaller, irritating things made 2021 pretty crappy, too. But that’s life, right? Shit happens. And the best way to get through it is to deal with the shit as best you can and be grateful for the good things in your life. 

Last year, COVID kept me from seeing any of my immediate family on what I consider to be the biggest family holiday of the year. This year, though, will be different. My wife and I will be hosting dinner for my mom, my brother, and one of my sisters. And both of our sons will be  in the house, too! It’s actually going to be somewhat normal*, which I am extremely grateful for. (* FYI, "normal” with my family is never really normal, but I think you get what I mean.)

So, I guess it’s time for what has become my annual Thanksgiving Gratitude List. I don’t post much on this blog anymore, but I still like to sit down and make this list once a year. It kind of keeps me grounded. (If you’ve never made a gratitude list, I highly recommend it.)

Happy Thanksgiving from me and mine to you and yours. My hope is that you have an enjoyable day with people who truly matter to you, and that you eat well in the process. Appreciate what and who you have, because there are a lot of people who would love to have the same. And at some point, you may not have everything or everyone you have today. So, be in the moment and take it all in. As my spiritual advisor Anne Lamott says, “Right this minute, we understand that this is all there is, so let’s really be together.” (My family actually uses that line as our pre-meal “grace.”)

And with that, here's my stream of consciousness, in-no-particular-order gratitude list for 2021. As always, there will be overlaps from last year, but so be it. 

Some Things I Am Grateful For

Kathleen Marie Cook Dauphinais (always at the very top of my gratitude list)
My 90-year-old mom
My two sons, Sam and Josh

My other two sons, Thelonious and Monk

Everett, Duncan, Christy, and Kyle

My siblings

My job at Families Against Narcotics

My co-workers 

Vaccinations

My Pontiac Solstice convertible
Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption on ESPN (my favorite hour of television)

The TV the guy on Facebook Marketplace gave me for free

Friends (the actual people, not the TV show!)

Fredi Bello (a.k.a. Fredi the Pizzaman)

My house

Cookbooks

People with a similar sense of humor

Hosting living room shows

Window screens

Spending time with my two little buddies next door

My fireplace

Naloxone

Boat days with my neighbors

A basement that’s getting closer and closer to being back to a pre-flood state

My electrophysiologist

Music
Anne Lamott and her amazing words
Everyone who follows my Anne Lamott Quotes Twitter feed
33 years of marriage
Decent writing and editing skills

Jim Bryson

Matthew Ryan

Kathleen Edwards

Pizza (duh)
Will Johnson’s artwork

The Serious Eats website

J. Kenji López-Alt

Clouds
Zoloft

Cashews

My neighborhood and all my wonderful neighbors

Chris Walker at Golling Toyota

Gratitude (Can you be grateful for gratitude? I think so!)
Memories of those no longer with us (my dad, mother- & father-in-law, & grandparents)

Taylor Swift

Essential workers

Lake Michigan

Siblings-in-law, nieces, and nephews

Random acts of kindness

Saturday New York Times Daily Mini and Spelling Bee challenges with David and Alli

The Internet

The moon

The Detroit Lions (Just kidding! The Lions suck!)

Mickey Redmond

Facebook Marketplace

Jennifer Garner

Julia Kristina, M.A. Psych.

JM Storm

Spring, summer, and fall (sorry, winter)
Freshly baked bread with butter

Eastside Bagel

Reasonably good cooking skills

The writings of Matt Haig

Hope (always)

Good health insurance

Bob and Jayne at Undertow Music

 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who reads this. Peace, love, and good food. 

What are you grateful for today?

-Dean

 

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~Melody Beattie

Cooking: A Key Ingredient in My Recipe for Recovery

This blog post was originally posted on another website on July 8, 2015. It popped back into my brain this morning while I was in a harm reduction/recovery coaching class and the trainer mentioned that cooking was therapeutic for him. My feelings exactly! So, I figured I'd share this "vintage" post again here.

I love to cook. It’s one of my favorite hobbies. In fact, as I sit here typing, I have four whole chickens brining in the refrigerator, waiting for their mid-morning date with the smoker.

I didn’t start cooking until I was in my early 30s, when I lost my job and my wife made the decision to go back to work. It was then that I began a two-year stint as a stay-at-home dad, taking care of my young son and doing all the things necessary to run a household. Including cooking.

Up until that point, I had hardly any cooking experience at all. Sure, I could make grilled cheese sandwiches and macaroni and cheese out of a box. But other than that, I was a neophyte in the kitchen. Things had to change, though, because it wasn’t fair to have my wife work all day, then come home and have to cook dinner. So I decided I was going to expand my cooking knowledge and see if I could feed my family without getting anybody sick.

I remember the first real entrée I cooked: It was meatloaf, and I remember calling my mom and asking her for her recipe. I still have the scrap of paper I wrote that recipe down on, but I don’t have to look at it anymore because it’s all in my head now.

Fast-forward to the late 1990s. That same son I stayed at home with for two years was now a teenager struggling with addiction. My world was turned upside down, and I felt lost and helpless. But I eventually learned that self-care and my recovery were just as important as my son’s recovery. I needed to do things that made me feel better so that I could have some semblance of a normal life while I dealt with my son’s issues. Cooking was one of those things.

During my son’s active addiction, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, immersing myself in cooking. I still cooked from recipes I found in the countless cookbooks I’d collected over the years, but I also took things to the next level. I started creating my own recipes and making original dishes that actually tasted good. To quote a famous Cajun chef: “Bam!”

Like writing, cooking is incredibly therapeutic to me. When I’m cooking, my mind is focused on the task at hand; not on the little—and not so little—life problems that bring stress to my world. I feel at peace in the kitchen. It’s my happy place and my sanctuary. There’s no doubt that cooking has been a key ingredient in my recipe for recovery from my son’s addiction.

Today, my son is three years clean and sober, and I’m still cooking up a storm. I do about 95 percent of the cooking in my house, which makes my wife super happy. Best of all, it makes me super happy, too.

I thought I would share one of my favorite original recipes with you. This recipe was made up as I went along, so I apologize if quantities/measurements aren’t exact. The recipe as it is below makes about 14 enchiladas (two pans of seven each). So you may want to adjust accordingly. Enjoy!

Grilled Sweet Potato & Black Bean Enchiladas

3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut lengthwise into “planks”
1 onion, chopped
1 fresh jalapeno pepper, chopped
1 15 oz. can of black beans, drained and rinsed
19 oz. of red enchilada sauce
8 oz. shredded “Mexican Blend” cheese
8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
14 soft taco size flour tortillas
Olive oil
Kosher salt
Pepper
Cumin
Chipotle chili powder
Fresh cilantro, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 tbsp. butter

Put the sweet potato “planks” on a couple of baking sheets. Brush the surface with olive oil, then season with kosher salt, pepper, and cumin. Turn the sweet potatoes over and brush the other side with olive oil, seasoning with kosher salt, pepper, and chipotle chili powder.

Grill the sweet potato planks on a grill over medium heat (with the top closed) for 10 minutes. Flip the sweet potatoes over and grill with the top closed for another 10 minutes. (Don’t be alarmed if the sweet potatoes char. When they char, you get all kinds of flavor and crunch without a burnt taste. It’s caramelization, baby!) Note: I suppose you could broil the sweet potatoes instead of grilling them, if you wanted to.

When potatoes are done, transfer them from the grill to a large bowl and mash them with a potato masher (I added about a tablespoon of butter to mine).

Put about 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a small skillet and sauté the onion and jalapeno until soft.

Add the onion, jalapeno, cilantro, and black beans to the mashed sweet potatoes and mix thoroughly with a spatula.

Brush the inside of two 9 x 13 baking pans with olive oil. Then pour enchilada sauce into the pans so that it covers the bottom.

Prepare each enchilada by spooning approximately 3 tablespoons of the potato mixture down the center of a tortilla. Then sprinkle about a tablespoon of the Mexican cheese blend on top of that. Roll up the tortilla and put in the pan (seam side down). Continue doing this until you’ve used up all the potato mixture.

When your enchiladas are done being assembled and are in the pans, pour the remaining enchilada sauce over the top of them. Then cover with the shredded cheddar cheese.

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes, until the cheese on top is melted and the sauce is bubbling.

Serve immediately. Suggested garnishes: sour cream and guacamole.

"There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good." --Brian Andreas

Trust me. These are badass.

Anne Lamott to the Rescue (Again)

Over the years, the words of Anne Lamott have helped me through some very difficult and challenging times in my life: my son’s addiction, my father’s death, an extended period of unemployment, and a cancerous tumor on my kidney, to name just a few. So, it came as no surprise whatsoever that Dusk Night Dawn: On Revival and Courage found its way into my hands the same week my father-in-law had a massive stroke and lay in a hospital bed with a very uncertain future. (Cue Twilight Zone theme song here.)

I am incredibly grateful for Anne Lamott and her writings. (So much so that I started the Anne Lamott Quotes account on Twitter, which you should definitely go follow!) To be honest, I’ve pretty much fallen in love with every book she’s ever written. (Full disclosure: I haven’t read any of her novels!) That’s why my brand new love affair with Dusk Night Dawn was entirely predictable. But, even though I may be a bit biased, please trust me: This one’s another winner.

Annie tells it like it is and, quite often, tells it like she wishes it was. After all, she admits to us that “most of my life force goes into trying to self-will life and me into cooperating with how I think things should be.” On the other hand, though, she seems to be making some progress in her “third third” (love that term!) of life. “I am slowly making my way from a hypnotized engine of delusion and self-obsession to being a bit more real, a smidge more alive more often. I’ll take it. I am learning to live more often in reckless love.”

 

Speaking of love, that’s covered in Dusk Night Dawn, too, as Annie frequently talks about her still-relatively-new marriage to her soulmate, Neal. Sure, she loves and adores him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a target at times. “When I’m watching him, I observe what a tall, nice-looking, thoughtful focused know-it-all he is. He comes from a family of know-it-alls. His brothers are just like him. I love them, but at our family vacations it is like Wikipedia with PMS.” 

My favorite essays in Dusk Night Dawn are probably “Lunch-Money Faith” and “Light Breezes.” In “Lunch-Money Faith,” Annie talks about her friend Terri who, one day at church, told her, “I have made a life and career out of being a good sport…And I am worn out.” Annie concurs. “Me too. I am sick and tired of being such a good sport and worker bee, chin up and adorably ironic, while we notice how much worse things have grown.” Amen to that. Aren’t we all just a little tired at this point?

 

Meanwhile, in “Light Breezes” Annie explores one of my favorite “D” words: Dread. As a lifelong catastrophizer, I can easily relate to what Lamott calls “my most reliable companion, always there for me, like God in a bad mood,” sharing with us that “Dread was my governess growing up.” She adds, “If Dread is not still right there at my side, she’s there in the wings, humming her hymns, drumming her fingers, knowing there is always a place for her in my heart. Life will push her call button.”

 

In true Anne Lamott fashion, though, there is lots of positivity in Dusk Night Dawn, too. “Yes, these are times of great illness and distress,” Annie writes. “Yet the center may just hold.” She also posits that “Hope springs from realizing we are loved, can love, and are love with skin on. Then we are unstoppable.”

 

Dusk Night Dawn is classic Anne Lamott, full of observation, honesty, sarcasm, positivity, self-deprecating humor (“I have a doctorate in morbid reflection.”), and the occasional eff bomb (“Never disobey Sunday school teachers. They will fuck with you.”). If you need a little bit of hope and courage, do yourself a favor and read this book. And remember: “The kitten isn’t dead. The kitten is in the living room.” (You’ll have to read the book to understand the meaning of that!)

"In the third third of life, you may become just as miserable and prickly as ever, but you cycle through more quickly. You remember other dark nights of the soul and how by dawn they always broke. You discover that everything helps you learn who you are, and that this is why we are here. You roll your eyes at yourself more gently. You sigh and go make yourself a cup of tea." --Anne Lamott