If you haven’t checked your calendar, listened to the news, or talked to anybody outside your house: today is the day before National Parfait Day, and the day after Eat a Cranberry Day. Yes, it’s Turkey Day: the only day where, on average, people eat 4,200 calories (that’s about two days worth of food).
With all the thanking and the giving, many people forget all of the cooking and the fuming frustration that comes with it. Whether you’re toying with a turkey or pursuing a pumpkin pie, cooking Thanksgiving dinner can be a real hassle. This year my family was assigned dessert; which means: eight pies, one banana bread, and four batches of cookies. Three days ago was Cookie Day where we baked four different kinds of gourmet, chocolate cookies. Two days ago was Pie Prep Day, and then yesterday was Pumpkin and Cherry Pie Day. Now today was reserved for the most difficult pie: apple. With a homemade crust, filling, and topping this pie can take four hours with five people working on it- and that’s just the first one.
With its golden-brown, flaky, sugar-on-top crust, it looks too beautiful to have caused such an aggravation. Whether it be the thought of the delicious pies we would taste later, or the fact that the rest of my family is depending on these desserts to complete the dinner- we finished those pies. My father speculated that the key to our success was in the music that blasted through the house in an attempt to ease the tension (especially when our bottom oven broke with six pies left to bake… that was bad). Here’s a snippet of what my dad calls “the tunes” because it wasn’t just my family in that kitchen- Marva Wright, Peter Gabriel, and Santana decided to join us as well.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/marvalous/id301561747 (click on any song for a preview- my favorite is Wang Dang Doodle)
Whether your head started to bob, your foot started to tap, or you started to boogie like I did- it’s a well-known fact: music resonates with everybody. Turns out music can do much more than paste a smile on your face. It’s known for being an effective therapy for pain, reduces blood pressure, maintains a speedy recovery after a stroke, boosts immunity, memory, and IQ, advances physical performance and coordination, and it improves your productivity. And that’s not even half of it. As we speak, researchers are delving into the brain to truly understand why that foot-tapping we experienced earlier, does so much for our body and our brain than we ever realized.
So if you have Turkey Day blues and can’t wait for the food to cheer you up- turn up the tunes and rock out. This way, you can celebrate Thanksgiving with Marva Wright and party all night long.
Have a stress-freeThanksgiving!
photo cred: me! and here's one last picture of that apple pie:
Here are some interesting articles about how music affects us:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/226000/how_does_music_affect_emotions.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-music-make-us-fe
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