WHERE TO GIVE THIS THANKSGIVING + MY FAVORITE SIDE DISH

It is 1 AM. The mini apple pies have been assembled and baked and are cooling in the kitchen. The serving dishes have been washed and dried and set aside. I have five million loads of dishes to do before our guests arrive so that everybody has clean plates, but instead I've been watching Gilmore Girls all night (season two! tell me that la-la-la background singing eventually goes away?) and eating millions of frozen mini Twix bars and texting with my sister, who is about to take a red eye to NYC so she can sleep on my couch and update me on the various goings on of all the Kardashians. Yay for my sister and yay for Thanksgiving! 

I think Thanksgiving is my dark horse favorite for the holiday top five. I don't know. Parade, dog show, beige foods, maybe a bike ride through the neighborhoods later once we're no longer comatose, then scouring the corner tree lots for THE TREE OF OUR LIVES. I love this week. I even love making that dang crimson jello even though I manage to screw it up in new and different ways every blasted year. 

I was planning on sharing my favorite Thanksgiving side dish recipe in its own pretty post this morning, with pretty pictures to go along with and all kinds of elaborate step by step crap, but instead, Gilmore Girls. 

And then I was going to post another post later this evening, sort of an "I'm grateful for blah blah blah" type deal that you're used to reading by now from bloggers, plus a round up of a few of my family's favorite places to give service + donations during this time of year, but instead, Gilmore Girls.

But! Rather than admit defeat! We're just going to make this work. So. First you're going to read my thoughts on junk, and then about a few neat opportunities for holiday giving that my family have done in the past, or that I've been collecting in my inbox and researching online, and last I am going to send you off with my famous recipe for sweet potatoes. You have just enough time to include them in your menu for tomorrow! (Today!) (I am so unprepared you guys!) I don't really have a pithy name for these sweet potatoes yet. But they do involve mini marshmallows. So don't let me down!

Well, first this is what I want to tell you, is that I am a terribly lucky brat with a lot to be thankful for always, but especially this year.

This year I am grateful for fresh starts. I am grateful for recognizing when things are going in a dumb direction, and the unending capacity we have as humans for growth and renewal and for screeching on the brakes and going--wait, hold up.

I am grateful for our friends. I'm grateful for lost friends who found their way back. I am grateful for friends we see occasionally and for friends we see weekly on our standing Taco Thursday night. I am grateful for my baby's school. Oh my gosh, my baby's school. His amazing teacher, and the boys in his class (Huck is one of six kids in his class. Just six! All of them boys, all of them the sweetest in the world. Huck's teacher calls them "the fellas." Does that not make you grin till your face hurts?)

I'm so grateful for Brooklyn! And for good careers. And for the kind of family that you get giddy over seeing.

Mostly, I'm just really grateful for my boys. I have good ones. I'm so thankful for this chance I have to (sometimes poorly, I might add) juggle all of these wonderful roles that I've got. Wife, mother, lover, friend, writer, debate partner, mortal enemy, buddy, loader and unloader of the dishwasher, daughter, sister, planner, collaborator. Slow email responder. Clothes-wearer. Over-obsessive thinker.

I'm lucky to find myself in a position where I can do things, small stupid things, but things that somehow make things better. I'm grateful for the kind emails from readers, strangers but best friends at the same time, and the encouragement they so lovingly give. I'm so lucky. You know, I once got an email from a teenaged reader who said my blog helped her to stop cutting herself. It floored me. I'm floored every time I think of it. And I think of that girl and that email nearly every day. I think that if nothing else, then this whole blog is hers. It's for her. And gosh. I mean . . . gosh.

Since our thoughts naturally seem to go this way during the holidays, here are a few of our favorite places to give, both during the holidays and all year round.

Sanctuary for Families: Provides services to domestic violence victims, sex trafficking victims, and their children.

City Harvest: Helps feed the more than 1.4 million New Yorkers facing hunger each year.

Coalition for the Homeless: Providing housing, food, crisis services, job training, and youth programs to give homeless kids the support they need to keep up with their peers at school.

New York Cares Coat Drive: 'Tis the season to help keep our neighbors warm and healthy.

The ASPCA: We can't forget our furbabies.

Brooklyn Toys for Tots and The Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, for locals.

It is now 2 AM. And So. The moment you've all been waiting for  . . . The Sweet Potatoes.

Natalie's Buttermilk Sweet Potatoes 

(this title needs work)

INGREDIENTS

6-10 sweet potatoes, peeled, diced, boiled, and mashed

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsps cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

mini marshmallows

METHOD

1. Prepare your sweet potatoes, mash 'em as best as you can, no I don't have anything fancy I use a fork.

2. Add sugar, buttermilk, vanilla, cinnamon, and baking powder. Stir to combine.

3. Once cooled, add the eggs, beaten. Stir to combine. 

4. Pour potato mixture into a casserole dish and bake in a 350 F oven for 20 minutes

5. Remove from the oven and top generously with a sick amazing layer of mini marshmallows. GO FOR BROKE, YOU GUYS. Return to the oven and monitor it closely. You want to remove it as soon as the marshmallows have browned and puffed up. Sometimes this takes about 10 minutes. You can use the broiler if you want, but be prepared that will make it go a lot faster, so no bathroom breaks. (You could also kitchen torch the sucker, you fancy.)

This dish happens to be the best dish ever, and tastes particularly amazing cold, fresh from the fridge. Leftovers! Oh leftovers!

Well, I'm finished now. Hey but what kind of Thanksgiving blog post would this be if I didn't end it a la Rose-That-Is-A-Great-Name? ("So sign already!")

I mean it. Happiest to you and yours. I love you! No but I do!