In November of 1980, I was the director of Juvenile Advocates, a
legal advocacy program for incarcerated teens located in Morgantown,
West Virginia. My job consisted of monitoring the treatment of
juveniles who were locked up in county jails, detention centers and
what were known then, as reform schools. Perhaps the most interesting
part of the job was that about every two weeks I would drive the
roller-coaster roads of the state to interview the kids locked up in
the various institutions from the West Virginia Industrial School for
Boys in
Pruntytown to the West Virginia Industrial School for Girls in Salem
and the Leckie Youth Center, located way down in the coalfields of
McDowell County.
The names “Industrial School” and “Reform School” were vestiges of the early 20th century reform movement. Prior to that age of enlightenment, teenagers who broke the law were treated identical to adults. They were tried in criminal courts, locked up in state prisons along side adult inmates and even hung from the gallows. With the advent of the progressive movement, delinquency came to be thought of more as a social problem having its roots in poverty, discrimination and family disintegration. I could quote the great turn-of-the century social reformer Jane Adams, but I think the Jets provide the most eloquent explanation: “Dear Kindly Sgt. Krupke, you gotta understand, it’s just our upbringing upke that gets us out of hand, our mothers all are junkies, our fathers are all drunks, golly Moses naturally we’re punks.” Rather than punish delinquents in prisons, the thinking went, they should be sent to schools to be ‘reformed,’ made more ‘industrious.’
Last month I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner and a Christmas dinner. The only thing missing was a crowd around the table. Why the feast? I was developing recipes for Roast Turkey, Brown Sugar and Mustard Baked Ham, Maple Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Lightened Green Bean Casserole, a Holiday Salad (with pomegranate seeds and pepitas) and Harvest Apple Stuffing. I also created some recipes using leftover ham and turkey and for a few fun things you can make for the holidays to give as gifts like Peppermint Bark and Chocolate Chip Cookies in a Jar. The recipes were for 
Pumpkin pie has been typecast. It always plays the same role: The Thanksgiving Day Dessert.
It’s been our Thanksgiving tradition for twenty years. The men do the cooking. The women get the day off.
For Thanksgiving we have a menu we love. Roast turkey, corn bread stuffing with Italian sausage, shiitake mushrooms and Turkish apricots, baked sweet potatoes with butter, cranberry sauce, roasted Brussels sprouts and sautéed string beans with garlic-toasted almonds. Since I started doing travel writing, I like to include one dish I've learned to make on a trip.