Faithful readers of this blog may recall how I nearly exterminated my family with my home-cooked Thanksgiving meal last year. I know my family still remembers.
I managed to hold the food-poisoning blues at bay this year thanks largely to my sister doing all the cooking. I offered to help, but all I got to cook was bread. Crescent rolls, to be exact, just like my mom used to make.
Not exactly like mom’s, actually, inasmuch as mom’s tasted like they were cleaved from a rising harvest moon and massaged with butter churned that morning. Mine tasted like pizza dough from a tube, the kind that explodes when you leave it near the stove, only not as light and airy. They were still pretty all right.
I am becoming more and more aware of foodborne illnesses; having loved ones 
who work in the health field tend to make one cognizant of things lurking behind every slice of deli meat that might make you wish you were a vegetarian (until you hear about things in the green onions that will make you wish you ate a bacon-cheeseburger at lunch instead of a health-promoting salad.)
It’s not as if I walked a tightrope between salmonella and listeria all these years until now. Or did I? Would I ever really be aware of how close I am to leaving this vale of tears at any given moment?
I don’t intend to let fears – be they reasonable ones regarding being careful with our food or bigger ones involving the world at large – make my holidays less enjoyable, fun, and filled with the love of our families and friends. But it isn’t necessary to walk a tightrope when there’s some perfectly good flat ground within easy reach.
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