From Penn:
This has been such an amazing year for me. After nearly two decades of working in TV news, and not getting home until the kids’ bedtime, I discovered something I honestly haven’t ever been a part of….
The nightly family dinner.
I mean, we had dinners together on weekends and vacation, but there is something so special about doing it every night. The conversations just pick up where they left off the night before, they get more funny, more meaningful, more EVERYTHING.
Plus, I get to cook again! I love cooking. It’s always an adventure. I never follow the recipe. I always add something that either makes it amazing, or a total disaster. I can’t help myself.
Kim is cool with it either way, or at least she’s sweet enough to pretend to be. We always find a way to eat enough, and laugh enough, and go to sleep, and do it again.
Except for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving, there is no I in TEAM. Wait, actually, there is, because there’s an I in KIM. She’s plenty patient with me during the week cooking for amateurs (my kids), but for that one day of the week, I have to get the hell out of the kitchen (and the Dining Room at that… Apparently my table-setting abilities are woefully inadequate).
Thanksgiving is Kim’s Super Bowl. She is up at 4 AM. She has an intricate schedule to make sure everything makes it in the oven, and all 9 of her dishes are ready, somehow, at the exact same time. So if I saunter in with a goofy smile and say something like “Hey babe I’m gone just go ahead and make the stuffing”, her head spins around like Linda Blair, and I back out quietly.
So basically, on Turkey Day, I have the following responsibilities:
Make sure the kids don’t get in her way (unless she wants them to)
Entertain the guests (which I do by turning on the NFL)
Baste the Turkey
That’s right! I do get to go in the kitchen every 30 minutes. She straps a timer around my neck and when it goes off, I take the turkey out as quickly as possible, and douse it with butter. I get this responsibility because A) Our oven is a perpetual smoke factory, and B) Our Turkey weighs about 659 pounds and you cant slide it out of the oven or the grill will tip over. You have to work the baster into the oven like you are playing Operation and try not to burn your hands off (which I do anyway)
I AM NOT COMPLAINING. Kim does a phenomenal job every year, and I’m lucky to be in the same zip code as her on Thanksgiving. Enjoy the video, and tell us some of your Thanksgiving stories – comment below!
