Cooking together has been a staple for my family. Whether learning or teaching a new recipe or sitting and eating together, the vital link that connects the Guira family is food. Given our affinity for food, Thanksgiving is a tremendous deal. Each year, every member of the Guira family knows the dishes they are to prepare for the anticipated feast. 

My mom dusts off her stained and torn "École Hôteliére de la Capitale" cookbook, each recipe adorned with faded annotations. Finally, she flips to the Potato Anna recipe, with a not-so-bright-anymore yellow post-it labeled- "Xavier." This had been my oldest brother’s recipe since the day he whole-heartedly contested the continuation of the mundane mashed potatoes at the Thanksgiving table, advocating that they were "too simple for the Guiras." Make no mistake, Thanksgiving for my family is a time to show off our culinary skills. 

My assigned dish, apple pie, has evolved since I could cut an apple. When red, orange and yellow hues flood the floor of New York's sidewalks and parks every year, and the crisp air softly whips my face with each breath, I knew I would soon be preparing my signature flaky homemade pie crust. Before apple pie could officially become my dish, I had to go through the same initiation my older brothers had endured. My mom's breath on my shoulder, hand hovering above mine, ready to swoop in at a stir of the wrong speed. "You are not latticing the crust correctly" “fold the apples, don't stir; you want them crispy, not mushy."

 As soon as I could complete each task to my mother's precise standards, it was time for me to tackle the recipe alone. Years later, my rosewater apple pie has become a staple for the Guiras. But, while every year on the fourth Thursday of November, you can find my family digging into a golden and fragrant pie, the dish preparation is not so much a symbol of our appreciation for our country. Instead, the day is a celebration of the process by which my pie came to be; While I may not be a soldier running into combat, exclaiming, "For mom and apple pie," the same patriotic implications stained my apron; I had patriotism for my family. 

Although American appreciation is implicated in preparing apple pie for Thanksgiving, I had never considered making this dish for the beloved holiday as exercising any pride for my country. Recently, though, I have wondered if I have been unknowingly exercising American pride. I have realized that just as the history of Thanksgiving does not have a precise understanding, celebrating the holiday does not have to take a single form. 

Thanksgiving is inherently an "American holiday," representing our nation's dark origins, yet my Canadian-native American, culinarily-trained mother has fused with my nationalist grandma creating a night of appreciation for family, expressed through food. My mother, whose ancestors were colonized by my grandparent's ancestors, come together on Thanksgiving and appreciate each other, history and all. While this day can sometimes invoke feelings of sadness or displacement for my mother, once the setting of my giant family perimeter, the same marble counter, appears, her reminiscent sadness seems to drift. The dough is rolled, potatoes slice through the mandolin, and the turkey is stuffed; everything seems picture perfect, so why dwell on why we have this time together? Instead, we have simply taken advantage of the designated time as a holiday of our own for the sake of practicing togetherness and love. Although this day's history doesn't invoke happiness for my mom, the memories we have created on this day, like the rosewater that balances the tartness of the apples in my pie, have overpowered the sour taste of its grim past.