Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving Perspective

I took a parenting class in college, and the teacher taught me an invaluable lesson about perspective. He gave us a situation to imagine. I'm going to give you my version of it. :)

Imagine that it is Thanksgiving, and you are preparing the meal of your dreams. I just went through this today, so I'll just use my meal as an example. You prepare a large turkey, filled with dressing. You make some candied yams, mashed potatoes and gravy, stir fried green beans with garlic, fresh home made rolls, olives, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie for dessert. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate this meal?

Now let's assume that you made some mistakes with your meal, as I did today with mine... Let's assume that when you got the turkey out of the fridge, it was still partially frozen. You are taken back a little, but you remember reading that you can still cook it, but just need to cook it a little longer. You know that you should cook it 20 minutes per pound, and it is a 24 pound bird, so you figure out that it will take 8 hours to cook. But then about 2 hours from the time it should be ready, you discover that because the turkey is so big, the broth and turkey fat has boiled over, and it now pooled in the bottom of your oven. You grab some paper towels and sop it up before the oven catches on fire. But you are still able to keep cooking it. However, when it is time to take it out, it seems overcooked. In fact, you took it out a little earlier than the estimated time, and it is still overcooked, and a little dry. Now rate your meal on a scale of 1-10.

Now let's assume that when you saw that the turkey was still frozen, it flustered you enough that you forgot to add the second container of bread crumbs to the dressing. When you finally do take the turkey out, you find that you now have dressing soup. It is completely inedible, so you toss it. Luckily, there was too much to fit in the turkey, so you had put some extra in another pan, and it turns out fine. But there will be no leftover dressing.. Now rate your meal on a scale of 1-10.

Many people would feel that because the turkey was overdone, and the dressing turned in to soup, the meal was a flop. They would probably say the meal was a 2, or a 3 on a scale of 1-10. But what my teacher pointed out was that you have to remember what you have left of the meal that is good! My rolls turned out pretty good. The gravy was delicious. The candied yams were to die for. The pumpkin pie turned out the best it has in years. The potatoes were heaven. So even though the turkey was a little dry, and the dressing was a little wet, all in all, I would give our dinner an 8.

It's all in how you look at it! :)

3 comments:

Rummuser said...

And I will be very grateful that the meal was eaten with great joy and affection for the cook.

Grannymar said...

And for someone with no turkey, it would be a feast!

Nene said...

I'm glad the rest of your meal turned out great! I love Thanksgiving!