It was the first Thanksgiving day I remember, at the age of six. I listened to my hot pink iPod shuffle. We pulled into the driveway of my Nanny and Poppy’s house around 3:30pm, I hopped out of the car and raced up the patio steps to enter the pristine living room with red carpet and laminate couches. I didn’t get three feet through the doorway without being forced to give my grandparents a hug and kiss and listen to the usual “You are getting so big.”

All thirteen grandkids packed into the eight square foot kitchen for dinner. The stuffing bowl came my way. It filled up half of my dinner plate; the other half was the dried out turkey drowning in gravy. The cousins fought over their siblings to get a taste of each food that came their way. We skipped grace and let the fork quickly hit our lips.

Shortly after I said “I’m not hungry anymore” I let the food glide of my plate and plop into the trash with my fork helping push the leavenings off. Nanny brought out the dull grey dessert table with legs that were pleading to snap. She made it all better by laying a white tablecloth with red, orange, and yellow leaves on it over the vinyl table covering.

My eyes immediately dragged to the browned Czech folds that swaddled a dollop of apricot jam blanketed by powdered sugar on a serrated circular glass platter. I tried one, then another, and another.

“One more, than I’ll be done,” I said to myself as my powdered sugar dusted fingers reached for another. Their addictive nature consisting of a crisp bland outside shell with a sweet, delicate, sticky gold gel inside. The best food can come after the worst meal.