It is 11:00 on Thanksgiving Eve and a long day followed by 2.5 hours of cooking comes to an end. Two and a half hours for two dishes and each is only halfway done. Pakistani cooking can take some time. Yes, it has been my job for several decades to take Pakistani meatballs (koftas) to a very American Thanksgiving. And for the last few years, chicken pilau has been added to the askings.  My mom’s family will, of course, bring all the standard delicious American fare, and some deer if someone was lucky. 

Despite anticipation of a coming feast, though, mid-process is where sometimes one can experience small joys. The kofta pictured rather poorly above is here simply ground beef and cilantro and green onion and salt. Tomorrow, it will be steeped in a rich, spicy korma. It will be objectively better. And, yet, I relish the tasting of one such meatball each year to determine the salt level to see how the flavors are getting on. And if one is being helped by a child–as I have in the past by a sweet niece who aided in their rolling–then such a meatball gifted doubles the joy. 

Do you have any such joys of process? I hope there are many in these days of Thanksgiving in ways as sundry as there are households: a wishbone broken, a piece of bacon absconded, a bit of cookie dough pinched, an empty bowl of icing or batter that needs attention…if it hasn’t been scraped spotless by one of those cursed spatulas!

A Happy Thanksgiving to you.