
I’m getting ready for the Holidays– are you? It’s going to be a busy season of conviviality because I have so many ‘families’ to love.
There is, of course, Ken and all my ‘blood’ relatives. But there are also quite a few of the ‘kids’ I went to high school with who still mean a lot to me too. We get together regularly and ‘pick the ball up’ right where we left off. You haven’t seen silly til you’ve to see me revert to the geek I was in high school right before your eyes.
Then there is my globally extended online family of food lovers. The virtual eaters for I whom I peck out these sentences on a near-daily basis. What would the Holidays be without them? Most of them come to my table far-flung. We started as strangers, but we have become another sort of family. A kind of family I never expected when I started this blog.
But not all of these electronically monitored kinfolk are so far away. Some live right here in Southern California. Some live right on the next block and have for years. It just took the blog to finally meet them. How do we honor the Holiday and the bonds we share with so many other obligations this time of year?
Well, we could throw the calendar out the window and celebrate whenever we feel like it. That is just what Patti Londre, blogger at Worth The Whisk (seen in photo) did when she invited me and six other locals to a Blogger Thanksgiving Pot Luck at her home. We each brought our best effort dish, pulled out our cameras and got to work. Patti’s publicity-savvy even resulted in our dinner together being covered by the Los Angeles Times, both in the print and online editions. I hope you’ll read it.Thanks to my ‘sis’ La Fuji Mama for the photographic ‘proof in the pudding’ you see here. But then, like any good family, we sat right down and honored the Holiday and our good fortune together.
But as if that’s not enough. I have been welcomed into yet another family of sorts. My Homefries family. We are a family of podcasts on a wide range of topics. We were brought together by Joy The Baker and the talented, Emmy winning Michael Friedman. At the center, for me, of this family are two guys–Nathan and Andy. We do a podcast together called The Table Set. We talk parties.
Well, Thanksgivings are parties most of us remember our whole lives long. So this week Andy, Nathan and I talk turkey. Please tune in and listen as we try to decipher what Thanksgiving is and what it isn’t. We call our non-traditional Thanksgiving ideas T‑Gives and we hope you find some information you can use. Because like families– you never know from where the love in your life might come.
So here’s a toast to the Holidays and to Family. They needn’t be traditional to fill both your belly and your heart.

Greg: yes, I agree, you should definitively do more cocktails. You master them, and the hostory you add behind them adds to the glamour and mystique. “Ancora” per favore!!!
I agree with the comment “that is one sexy picture.” You know I love retro glamour.
I don’t know about the cocktail, but that is one sexy picture.
I’m not ready to ditch the cocktails but I so get the first part of your story…now I’m seeing so many others decide to do the same weekly thing and I won’t deny that has me just a bit verklempt. Still, it’s a big part of how I entertain and what I do and I LOVE including them, particularly the classics because as you noted Greg; there is always a story.
Beyond that, I love a Negroni; it’s a classic for a reason…it’s a great cocktail!
Once again you have scooped me! This time, however, I will proceed as my take on this cocktail is a bit different from yours. I think my understanding may be a bit closer to Michael’s as I really don’t see the romance in the story of an Italian aristocrat bullying a bartender into adding more alchohol to a cocktail. i’m glad he did though as this is certainly a classic worth spreading the word about. For me it has always been something of a litmus test of cocktail afficianados. If you don’t appreciate this drink, perhaps you’d rather have a lemon drop or something with Bailey’s?
Of course it’s a romantic story. He’s a count, he swaggers, he drinks, he parties and I’m sure if I had enough of these cocktails I could speak Italian.
This cocktail is anything but romantic. It is world-weary, it is louche, but it is not romantic in the least. Unless, of course, you are the type of person who finds Days of WIne and Roses romantic.
And Count Negroni would have used coasters.
…Count Negroni’s story is super romantic. I wish I were a cocktail swigging Italian Nobleman living in the us on the rodeo circuit! GREG