Thanksgiving Traditions

For the past four thanksgivings, Phillip and I lived in Madison, Wisconsin. My job did not consider the day after thanksgiving a holiday, which prevented us from traveling home. One of our favorite dishes for thanksgiving has kumquats in it, thus began our holiday tradition called "Hunting the Kumquats". We would start the Saturday before thanksgiving driving to all the grocery stores in Madison in search of kumquats. The game often carried over to the Wednesday before. We would scour the produce section, quiz the workers, shrug our shoulders and move on. After our first year, we began each subsequent years by starting at the place that we actually found them the year before. They never had them (must be some ordinance against carrying kumquats two years in a row). One place clearly thought they were table decorations because they had them in a little basket lined with pretty green paper. One basket, about 20 kumquats and that was it. No more in the store, but I did get a funny look from the stocker when I emptied the basket. This year, life was different. One store, one cruise through the produce section, no funny looks from stockers.