Don't Mess With Thanksgiving!

Leafing through my food magazines this month I found all sorts of extravagant gourmet ideas for Thanksgiving. At the ripe old age of 43, I have settled down to this one very important and basic understanding of Thanksgiving dinner: we all want to eat the same thing every single year. Here is what we want:

Turkey -- a very large bird, oven-cooked, hopefully with moisture in the meat. Please present the bird whole, because that's how you celebrate thanks to the bird whose life was sacrificed.

Stuffing -- sure, go ahead and try your variations, but we really just want something quite close in taste to Stove Top.

Gravy -- made from the turkey meat juices.

Mashed Potatoes -- sans garlic.

Vegetables -- green bean casserole (the recipe invented by the Campbell's soup company, not your fresh version with homemade bechamel), cauliflower & cheese casserole, and also something whipped & orange (yams and/or squash).

Other great additions are cranberry sauce, jello, and a fresh green salad with vinaigrette. I like lots of pomegranate seeds too. They make a meal totally festive.

I feel very certain in this proclamation this year, because I have learned about tasting research you might find interesting. It turns out that tasting enjoyment is almost completely psychological. In a beautiful setting, especially if surrounded with love, food will be delicious. You will not know that your mashed potatoes came from a box. If you believe the mashed potatoes are homemade, they will taste that way. The distortion of reality is quite fascinating, is it not?

Maybe that could take some of the pressure off of holiday meals. Please, dear readers, relax, make the Thanksgiving basics, have a glass of wine, and enjoy the love that surrounds you.

For more on the psychology of tasting, read Laura Esquivel, author of "Like Water for Chocolate." "Between Two Fires" is one of my favorite books.