Bone tired. Drove home from Vegas this afternoon. Loaded up on cheap dried snap peas and gas station coffee with a shot of hot chocolate.  Since getting back from Minnesota last week I’ve done that combination twice. Until the coffee set in I was going south on I-93 in a dream-like state. I just kept driving with both hands on the wheel praying to everything good and holy that I’d get back safely. The sun set over hills and valleys of dirt and sand, Joshua trees and Juniper. The landscape out here takes your breath away and makes your heart feel like it’s up in that pink hazy sky somewhere- floating away faster and further. You can’t keep up with the beauty of the desert at dusk; it envelops you and captivates you forever.  I was always meant for this place. Everywhere else in the world pales in comparison. My thoughts throughout the drive were running wild, the possibilities of my future sporadic, without borders or boundaries. I was in Vegas visiting a couple of friends who moved out there this fall. There are five of them in a large house on a boulevard only a short distance from the center of the city. Silver Lasso Street. There were palm trees reaching towards the brilliant blue sky. When I drove up on Friday there were several neighbor children playing street hockey. Christmas decorations still out next to the cacti and rocky yards. We made squash and rice for dinner, took a couple whiskey shots and went to the arts district for 1^st Friday art walk. Everyone was creating things right before you. Young hipsters playing guitar and dancing blissfully on sidewalks. Large fires to ward of the slightly chilled desert air. Art and antiques and live paintings and humanity. People painting old kids play cars, hot dog stands and falafel stands and art installations. It was a new perspective on Vegas. People live and dream and follow ambitions there. The lighted streets of the Vegas Strip seemed far away. These people weren’t out to get rich and drunk. They wanted to remember. The next day we hiked out by the red rocks. The sun was peaking through the corners of the mountains.

Two of my sisters and I are taking a bus from Chicago to Des Moines for the yearly Wendl family Thanksgiving extravaganza. My mother’s family has had this tradition for years now, we all gather together in my uncle’s small diner in rural Iowa for the day. I always look forward to the event but usually about halfway through the second piece of pecan pie my introverted self wants to run away with a book to avoid my chatty aunts and uncles’ questions about what I’m doing with my life. For years I’ve explained this quaint little hamburger joint as such, often throwing in that there is a soft serve ice cream machine and a television that only seems to play football or that Home Alone movie. I’d watch that Home Alone movie six times straight if it meant football was banned from all family functions. What is the allure of throwing a leather ball around in freezing weather America?

I’ve missed this reunion the last few years, so this will be my first year returning to Iowa as a vegan. It’s going to be a little rough returning to the land of casseroles and apple pies, but I think I’ll manage to scavenge some beans, and maybe if I’m lucky, some butter-less mashed potatoes. Lets just cross our fingers.

I guess why I’m writing this because, oddly, this bus has Internet, and plug-ins for laptop chargers. Thus, I’ve been reading NPR articles online. The first one that caught my eye was an article entitled “Tell Us About Your Families Endangered Dishes”, and it got me thinking of my own family’s favorite holiday dishes. These dishes start getting prepared and eaten around Thanksgiving, and don’t stop until after Christmas. I’m debating whether I can last back in South Dakota over Christmas when these dishes will sit in front of me at our big butcher-block table.  My father’s favorite is this strange Swedish desert pudding that I will not try to spell for you. It is very time consuming to make and it requires the perfect cooking time or it’s a flop. Each year we have to search around in local supermarkets, trying to find lingberries, because, according to my father, it’s just not the same without. Luckily the last town my parents moved to has many people of Scandinavian heritage, so its lingberry sauce can be found only a block away. Another family favorite is mom’s homemade stuffing, which is going to be the toughest to avoid. My sisters also make far to may gluten-infested goodies, like pretzels dipped in almond bark, and peanut butter filled crackers covered in chocolate. I guess the only thing I won’t miss, and this has become an endangered “dish”, is divinity, a nasty pink gob of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. I don’t think there is a better description, and my stomach feels vile even thinking about it. I don’t know why we started making it, only that one elderly lady from church gave mom the recipe and I thought it was so pretty and pink that we had to have it every Christmas. But thankfully, the tradition has died out.  So cheers to that endangered family dish.

Disclaimer: Back home in Prescott. Must admit the truth. I ate beef, chicken, and pork over break.  I ate pie and every kind of gluten conceivable! Warm rolls, cornbread, and waffles dripping with syrup. It was all delicious! I failed completely as a vegan and a GF. And that’s fine by me! Home means comfort, and I succeeded at the comfort. food department. Further more, there is no fear of our families holiday dishes becoming endangered, I’ll make sure of it, meat and gluten and all.