So there I am.  Cranberry sauce?  Check.  Pecan pie?  Check.  Green beans?  Tipped, tailed, and ready to go.  Turkey?  Brining–done and done.  Last step before setting the Thanksgiving meal in motion?  That’s right, my favorite: Sausage and sage stuffing.  As everyone knows, sausage and sage are the Batman and Robin of Stuffing Gotham—who am I to deny the dynamic duo?

The only thing out of the ordinary was that the night before, I couldn’t find any fresh, delicious sourdough bread (my stuffing grain of choice).  Fortunately, Whole Foods was there for me with a culinary bailout.  The kind souls in the bakery were featuring a bag of stuffing bread, which was little more than a simple sack of bread scraps from perhaps 10 different types of bread…cubed, bagged, and ready to rock.  Perfect, methinks, and I pick it up.

Fast forward to prep time, and I have onions and celery sweating, sausage browning, organic chicken stock warm and eager, and then–and I encourage you to envision this part in slow motion–I open the bag of cubed bread.  BOOM!  The kitchen explodes with the rank (if sweet) smell of cinnamon raisin!  ”How is this possible?!” I shriek, pouring through the plastic bag to confirm my worst nightmare.  Dogs are barking.  Children are crying.  Indeed.  Those raging Visigoths over at the Whole Foods bakery have done the unthinkable: they had included Cinnamon-Raisin bread in their stuffing bread mix.

For shame, little granules of cinnamon and sugar had since penetrated throughout the bag, unbeknownst to those reviewing it from without.  There was no salvaging the good pieces, and I had no other bread to use at this late hour.  Clearly, the debate settled on whether the mighty, meaty flavors of the stuffing would stomp all over the silly cinnamon flavors in, what, 1 out of every 10 cubes of bread?!

I pinched my nose, crossed fingers, and poured in the bread, careful not to let sugar-laden crumbs from the bottom into the mix.  Tears replaced any lasting need for kosher salt.

Many hours later, the turkey came out magnificently.  The vegetables were crisp and delicious.  The potatoes, the pies, the cheeses, gougeres…everything a red-blooded Thanksgiving-goer could ask for was in place and tasty.  But the stuffing, my dear friends…Yes, the stuffing, my online sympathizers, was for naught.  Only the sinewy flavor muscles of a strong gravy would weigh down the disappointment and outrage that was this year’s stuffing.

And like Tom Brady after a perfect season and a Super Bowl loss…I licked my wounds, and turned the page.  Next year, Thanksgiving, next year.

[gazing into the horizon, silently shaking fists in tortured isolation]