I’m not a fan of turkey in general, but once a year here in America it’s everywhere. Christmas has a variety of food traditions but for Thanksgiving, it’s turkey and dressing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. It’s the law, unwritten but still firm. So every year about this time, our media is full of a thousand ways to cook a turkey, a thousand things to do with leftover turkey, a thousand videos of exploding deep fried turkeys setting garages on fire, not to mention the President pardoning a turkey, although who knows how that’s going to go this year, he’ll probably fire it. It’s our solstice, or at least our prelude to the solstice that’s going to show up three weeks later with the longest night of the year, followed by the most obnoxious holiday of the year, followed by a new year that’s bound to be better than the last because dear God . . . It’s the cycle, I’m talking about. Which is why I read all the turkey recipes with joy even if I’ll never make another one–there are other ways to make gravy which is what this is all about for me–because it means that last cycle to a new and better time is starting.

So all the turkey news makes me happy. What made you happy this week?