The Red Wine Rule


Yes, the time has come for to prepare to see my distant relatives from PA. I haven't yet written about them, to the point that maybe you think I was raised by literate wolves, or that I ate the rest of my family. No, I simply prefer not to deal with them all that often. Yet every Thanksgiving they all come slogging down to devour the food my mother and I have made over a three day period.

Now to prepare you for what I expect to be a Thanksgiving family post extravaganza, I will spend every day until Thanksgiving posting a Bunni family story. That way when we get there you won't be so shocked.

Last year I instituted the red wine rule. The red wine rule is simply that an hour before my relatives arrive I start drinking red wine. Now I don't mean I guzzle the whole bottle, but you know a glass, so that once they get there I am nicely mellow. Now when I told that to a friend of mine, a friend of mine who had been smoking up five times a day. A friend of mine whose idea of kicking his habit was only to smoke pot on the weekends as long as you defined thursday morning as the weekend. He acted like I was an alcoholic. "You have to ask yourself did you really need to do that? Does it really help?"

Obviously, he has never dealt with my family.

He has never dealt with a grandmother who feeds my anxieties by claiming I will never get married because I don't keep house. He has never dealt with my aunt who claims her youngest child is a genius despite the fact the kid rarely speaks to people, and instead, spends the majority of his time meowing at our cats. He has never dealt with road kill stories from my aunt while preparing a turkey. He has never dealt with my grandmothers consistent insistence that the turkey will never be ready. He has never dealt with my aunt eating ingredients I am preparing OUT OF MY HAND.

I am not Emeril. I do not want an audience when I cook nor am I looking for tasters. If you are in my kitchen, you better damn well be doing something useful or you are going to get a BAM upside the head with a cast iron skillet/

Ok I am little hostile in the kitchen. But that's because my mother and I cook for three days. We cook a huge amount of food and most of it is gourmet (I use recipes from epicurious-the advanced recipe search is fabulous) So you'll forgive me I want to keep the foot traffic to a minimum.

I think that I'm not mainlining heroin before the fam arrives is a tribute to my personal fortitude. Not to mention that I have to go through the continued humiliation of not even having a boyfriend to present. ( although the contigency boyfriend, you know I always have a back up, and no it isn't Adam, wanted me to visit his parents for the holiday. however, they live in Jersey. The one thing I can think of less enjoyable then spending time with my family is spending time with some one else's family in Jersey. My father didnt work and slave to leave Jersey just so I could go and voluntarily return.)

Tune In Tomorrow for the Road Kill for Dinner/ Pie Billed Greeb story.