All I know is that I like turkey and want to keep Thanksgiving based on a turkey dinner. But maybe not turkey again for Christmas. Maybe its time for another goose at Christmas?

Of course, I bought candy that I like. So if there are not many kids this year, Whatever is leftover will not go to waste. I t would be a real shame to throw away perfectly good candy, now wouldn’t it?

I cannot believe that Sheila shops at the same grocery store that I do. She is clear on the other side of the Lake and the Kroger is much closer to her. But she says that she likes the smaller store because she can get what she wants and check out ten times faster than going to the huge, crowded Kroger. So I have to agree, I avoid the Kroger for quick trips like today and only go there once every 4 to 6 weeks to stock up on meat and other things that Food Lion doesn’t carry.

My parents believed that fresh picked not only tastes best but is healthiest for you, and I agree. We often went to a farm that grew strawberries and we would load up the freezer with fresh strawberries – my mom’s most favorite fruit in the world. We also picked other fruits and vegetables, and we patronized a lot of fresh fruit and vegetable stands that lined the Maryland highways, buying everything from fresh peaches to cantalopes to green beans to sweet corn.

When my children were young, we continued that tradition with them and they have picked many things from other’s gardens as well as our own. But our favorite has always been to pick blueberries. Not only is picking blueberries great family fun, but they freeze and keep well, and can be used in so many delicious things from the kitchen. There’s nothing like a stack of grandma’s fresh blueberry pancakes with melting real butter and warm blueberry syrup!

I’ve been a fan of peanut butter sandwiches my whole life, but it wasn’t until I moved to the South and kept hearing about the Elvis sandwich that I ever got around to trying a banana and peanut butter sandwich, and to be honest, it’s quite good! It goes great with a glass of ice cold milk.

Another southern specialty is a fried bologna sandwich. Haven’t tried that one yet.

My mother made tuna by adding Kraft Mayonnaise, chopped white onion, chopped celery and bottled sweet pickle relish. Heap it on fresh white Wonder Bread and put a few leaf pieces from a head of iceburg lettuce. Serve with potato chips.

My stepmother had her own idea of tuna. She used Hellmans mayonnaise, if she used mayo at all. She preferred the sweet-sour taste of Miracle Whip. She chopped up one or two hard boiled eggs to add to the tuna, along with some chopped onion. I don’t recall any pickle relish or celery, but to be honest, I hated that tuna recipe and would do almost anything to avoid having to eat it, from I’m not hungry right now to I don’t want to spoil my supper when I get home (to my real mom after the Sunday child custody visitation was over).

Now I celebrate the diversity of tuna and enjoy it with a variety of add-ins, including sweet pickle salad cubes or chopped “bread and butter” pickles, a slice of American cheese of top or shredded any mix of cheeses stirred right into the tuna. Onions in or out. Add anything crunchy that you like. Put it on any kind of bread or roll you want, and put any kind of lettuce – or not – on it.

The only place I draw the line is that IF you include mayo, it MUST be Kraft real mayonnaise. Any other brand of mayo or “salad dressing” ruins it for me.

I like O’Charleys better than Chilis and Applebys, but the O’Charley’s restaurants are a regional chain and are not in all the same cities that Chilis and Appleby’s will be.

I also like Cracker Barrel a lot, and love the way they will serve you a full country breakfast any time of day or night.