At this time of year, about 4 years ago, I had just finished college and was doing the same thing I am doing now—living unemployed.

I also had just discovered the Food Network and such personalities as Rachel Ray (before she became annoying, Tyler Florence (what a babe), and Alton Brown (my favorite). As much as they could teach me for about 3-4 hours everyday, I was learning to master the culinary arts.

I begun to feel so confident about my newfound knowledge of the kitchen that I decided to test my skills and take on Thanksgiving—for my first time.

For weeks I researched turkey-cooking theories and recipes to prepare my fabulous feast. I would take no shortcuts—everything would be from scratch.

On the day of the meal, I woke up at 5:00 a.m., and after 7 hours of nonstop chopping, stirring, tasting, baking, it was mealtime. I presented a buffet of tasty dishes, which filled the room with aromatics never before smelled on Thanksgiving. I was exhausted.

I christened the meal with “dinner is served” and everyone dove in. After the crowd departed and everyone was eating their meals at the table, I noticed my cranberry-apple-sage stuffing, green beans with orange essence and toasted maple pecans, and mashed sweet potatoes with ginger and brown sugar were left unscathed. Plates were instead filled with turkey, gravy, and stuffing. They wouldn’t even try it.

And to add insult to injury, everyone was done in 10 minutes. After slaving for 7 hours, and not to mention the weeks leading up to it and my emotional investment, this glorious Thanksgiving meal—a meal I imagined would blow away all my family’s previous Thanksgiving meals—was over in 10 minutes. I was heartbroken.

Well, time tends to make you forget things, and this year, being unemployed and once again watching a couple hours of the Food Network, I thought I’d take on Thanksgiving again.

So today I was up early washing, chopping, and peeling vegetables. But by about 10:00 am, with many hours of work still before me, I remembered my family’s no-risk approach to food and realized all my work would be in vain. A wave of apathy crashed over me, and I did not want cook this meal. I thought, “No one will eat my butternut squash soup with cinnamon-sugar croutons or my stuffed cremini mushrooms with parmesan and thyme.” So I cancelled all my fancy dishes, threw in the turkey and Stovetop and went back to bed.

Well, I didn’t really pay attention to the time when I put in the turkey (Alton would have been very disappointed). A few hours later we were all gathered around ready to eat. My father stood over a golden bird, sharpening his knife for the ceremonial carving. But about 5 slices in, he hit pinky raw flesh.

Nothing is more disappointing than to see your entire family on Thanksgiving, standing around with plates in hand, while potatoes and stuffing warm and ready, only to have the bird declared “unfit for serving.” All heads turned to me and my mom said, “Jen, you said were in charge of dinner.” I had decided to go watch a movie instead. “Oops,” I replied. “My bad.”

Fortunately, we had a back-up. Last night someone gave my dad a deep-fried turkey. We were skeptical of a deep-fried turkey (are we rednecks or something?), but we went ahead warmed it up while we cooked a normal one. But when the first bird didn’t pan out, low and behold, we opened the second oven and waiting for us was a dark, crispy, finger-lickin’ deep-fried turkey to save us. My dreams as a Food Network star came true—I just pretended to cook a meal then pulled out a ready-to-eat meal out of a magic oven.

When my dad started to carve the new bird I yelled, “turkey…scene one…take two!” and Thanksgiving was back on track.

For next year, we’ve decided to take a break and go out to eat.

**So Jenny is tired and can’t think of any dating advice for this post other than it would be cool if you cooked for her.