You see, my plan was to have a low-key, quiet celebration where CBB and I cook for a few friends I’ve been wanting to cook for and hadn’t gotten together with in a while. Add some family who are stopping through to top off the holiday season and quickly the numbers rise, but not to the level of many 50th mega-celebrations. Bill and I will cook, a few toasts may be offered, and we’ll all go quietly. Hardly. Like George Bailey of Bedford Falls, my plans were supplanted by seminal forces beyond my control…

So how did your Thanksgiving go? Uncle Hootie nod off in the lounger and spill Jim Beam on his crotch? Did the cousin you haven’t seen in 30 years who is exactly your age seem to look thirty years older than you? Did your football team win? Was the turkey dry or just right? Did your sister finally snap at you after you needled her mercilessly about her new boobs? And did you come away satisfied that you had sincerely given thanks for the food and that ragtag gaggle of friends and family you might not see for another year or more? Huh? And did you mean it?

I’ve heard Tony Bourdain say more than once that he’s an egg "slut."

Well, Skinny, meet me ‘round the corner, in a half an hour’

If Tony’s a slut, I’m a $10,000 a session, stiletto heeled, Vegas quality, fly me in for the weekend super tramp. I mean, c’mon, if it’s being easy we’re talking about, I’ll take it over easy anytime, day or night. Flip one, don’t flip one, it hurts so good!

Growing up in the 50’s and early 60’s in Cincinnati, Ohio was pretty much the cliche universally attributed to that era. At least it was in our part of town on Wexford, Avenue. Mom stayed home, Dad went to work. Mom handled the cooking Monday through Friday. And on the weekends, Dad and our next door neighbor, John Choate, or Jim Weiss, my favorite from across the street would rock the grills in the back yard. My earliest memory of my dad cooking was over the grill, but it would be years before I would see him in the kitchen, when it would finally dawn on me that it was okay for a guy to be in there with the knives and the fire, nothing sissy about it.