Thanksgiving

 If fall is the best season of all, Thanksgiving is the best holiday of all!

I hope this Thanksgiving finds you merrily cooking up delicious food to offer family and friends who gather around your (or their) table to celebrate all the amazing things life brings.  Food connects us.  It brings us together and unites us in flavors, smells, and sensations.  The crunch of celery, the smell of garlic simmering in hot oil, the taste of a perfect vinagrette, the laughter of joy.  

Early darkness and few days to work outside have provided ample time for dreaming.  I want to make a story/cook book.  Each recipe will have a story of its own, building the recipe into a living thing.  I will start here, on this blog site, to "practise", however, some of the best of the best will be held back for the actual cookbook.  

A title.  A title. I'm working on a title.    

So here is the first recipe. 

Inspired by Dr. Annie Fenn's Brain Health Kitchen - a cookbook filled with food that can actually improve one's brain health - I played around with a muffin recipe and made it brain-health-worthy.  

The Story of Brain Health Muffins  

Dr. Annie Fenn was my OB/GYN when I first moved to Jackson.  Coached by my mother who knew cancer well from her work in hospice, I found Dr. Fenn and she did her annual exams, sending me off with the required doctor's order for a mammogram to be scheduled at my convience. I have had an annual visit with my doctor and a mammogram every year since the age of 30.  

Dr. Fenn is a small and petite woman.  She has delivered countless babbies.  Pictures collaged on walls, notes from grateful parents.  Her examination room was like many others.  She sat in her doctor chair, below her patient, and listened and looked, proded and sampled, and offered words of wisdom.  "You will walk through menapause," she once told me.  I took her for her word and did just that! Is there any doubt that a doctor can guide you down just the road you should be going?

When I heard of her retirement, of course, I was happy for Annie and sad for me.  Luck would have it that I would find a marvelous replacement named Theresa Lerch, a certified nurse midwife.  Funny to be connected to so many women skilled in babies having chosen to not have any babies early in my life.   

In the last couple of years, Annie has watched her mother decline into early stages of Alzheimer's.  As a  physician and a passionate cook, Annie realized she was just the right person to take her education and her cooking skills to develop a cook book focused on foods that help "fend off Alzheimer's while still eating delicious food."

Many of you received her cookbook (see link above) last year from me as a holiday gift.  I hope you have found some recipes you enjoy.  Mostly, I  hope you have thought about the food you eat and how it can shape and change you as you walk through time. 

Annie's book has inspired this recipe and another;  the sourdough bread I proudly named "Annie's Bread".  Mike and my diet has had some subtle changes thanks to Annie's book and facts.  This Thanksgiving I say, thank you, Dr. Fenn!  

Brain Health Muffins

2 mashed ripe bananas (or 1 cup of pumpkin puree)

1/4 c olive oil

1/3 c maple syrup

1 egg (mixed up well)

1 t. vanilla

1 c. flour (whole wheat, gluten free - whatever you like!)

1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1/2 c. ground flax meal

1/4 c. pumpkin seeds

1 c. coarsely chopped walnuts

6 pitted dates chopped coarsley

Preheat oven to 350F.

The very best part of this recipe is that it is a one-bowl recipe!  Take one medium size bowl and mash two bananas (or use 1 cup pumpkin puree).  Add the oil, egg, maple syrup, vanilla.  Then in the same bowl, add the following dry ingredients; flour, baking soda, salt, ground flax meal, flax seed, pumpkin seed, walnuts.  And anything else your heart (or brain) desires.  I chopped persimmon up in this batch.  Try to mix the dry ingredients first then incorporate the wet below.   

Mix until all ingredients are blended and scoop into muffin tins sprayed with oil.  Top with a sprinkle of demerara sugar. 

Bake 18 minutes until knife comes out clean.  Enjoy for breakfast or dessert! 

Thanksgiving is a very special holiday and need not be reserved for just one day.  Gratitude is the secret to happiness.  End every day voicing some special good thing that occurred that day.  Soon, you will realize how lucky you are to be alive, to breath in the cold, crisp air as autumn excuses itself to winter.  Get out for a walk, eat good food, celebrate Life!