Thanksgiving Corn's Dramatic Comeback: A Nevin Barich Blog Experience

(Nevdogg Note: Last year, I wrote about how corn had once again returned to my Thanksgiving meal after an absence of several years. I love corn, and never did understand why it was somehow eliminated from the Thanksgiving meal menu. Because I have so many new readers from last year, and because what I wrote was pretty damn funny in my opinion, I have opted to re-post my blog from last year about Thanksgiving corn's dramatic comeback. Enjoy!!)

Last night at my Thanksgiving table, I greeted an old friend. It had been years since I'd seen him. Years since he and I shared a turkey day together. It had been far too long, and seeing him yesterday truly warmed my heart.

I call this friend:

Corn.

:-)

Ah, corn. Sweet, tender, buttery, delectable corn. The perfect side dish on my Thanksgiving plate.

Study your history. The Indians gave the pilgrims turkey, potatoes, gravy, yams, Ruffles, french onion dip, chocolate-covered cherries, diet pepsi and...

Corn. :-)

As a kid growing up, I spent several Thanksgiving getting acquainted with this wonderfully starchy vegetable. But something happened over the past several years:

Corn disappeared from Thanksgiving.

The turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy remained in abundance, but corn for some reason was no longer on the menu.

:-(

At first, I confess: I didn't think much of it. Perhaps someone had forgotten, focused on making more yams. But the following year, corn was again missing. The year after that, same thing. And the year after that, no corn.

So a few years back, I began my campaign to get corn back on the Thanksgiving menu. But a process I thought would take little time took six years. Unbeknownst to me, there's a lot of anti-corn sentiment in this world. 2003, 2004, 2005, 6 and 7: Each year, I argued for the return of corn on Thanksgiving and each year I was brutally rebuffed.

I heard every excuse in the world. It's too much trouble. No one eats it. It's boring. It's yellow. It's no good cold. Our old people can't eat it off the cob.

But I don't give up easily. I was determined to see corn and Thanksgiving united again. And so, I continued to fight the good fight, and in 2008 I went to my mom and asked her this:

Mom, I have wanted to see corn on the Thanksgiving table for so long. Would you be the one to stop the madness and unite corn with Thanksgiving once again?

And you know what she said?

Sure. I'll make a corn casserole.

NO!! Jesus, how complicated can this possibly be? I'm not asking for kobe beef or homemade cheese. It's corn!! Freakin' corn!! Go to the market, head to the frozen food section, and grab a bag of Jolly Green Giant.

Without putting it into a God damn casserole!!

Jews and their casseroles. A topic for another blog. :-)

And I know what some of you are thinking:

Nev, if you wanted corn so bad, why didn't you just make it yourself?

Because it defeats the entire purpose of the ideal male Thanksgiving!! If you're a guy, the best Thanksgiving food is the food you don't make yourself. It has to be made by someone else, preferably a woman (that's right, I said it), to bring out the ideal flavor. Otherwise, it's just not the same.

Men reading this blog know what I'm talking about.

But luckily, fate stepped in.

I got a call from my mom two weeks ago. She tried making the corn casserole. It didn't come out good (shock of shocks). So as a fallback, she was going to make corn.

The casserole taketh. And the casserole giveth.

So last night, corn returned to Thanksgiving.

And it was goooood.

:-)

And now for this week's:

SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Recently, a man married a video game.

Yep.

A man married a video game.

In another sign that the world is about to collapse, a fan of the Nintendo DS dating sim Love Plus liked his virtual lady so much that he decided to marry her. For real.

I hope he didn't buy her a ring. That's all I got to say.