I am craving a baked potato with butter and sour cream and chives. Sure sign I’m stressed. Special food cravings are one of the happier signs of stress in my life. And in my experience, food cravings beat booze cravings by a country mile.

I have a list of favorite foods. (Doesn’t everyone?) Pumpkin pie, which is timely. Molasses cookies (no one made them better or more often than my Nanny). My girlfriend Diane’s amazing trifle filled with fresh fruit (usually raspberries), fresh whipped cream, a cake base filled with something boozy and delicious but non-intoxicating and topped with slivered almonds. (And maraschino cherries? Or did I just add them in my mind’s eye?)

Special but sad as Diane’s trifle is usually only served at Christmas and other super special occasions during the year. Serving it more often would likely diminish the cachet. Sigh.

Then there is any kind of Chinese dim sum. Barbeque pork buns. Shrimp dumplings. Potstickers. If I was on a desert island with room service, my daily food order would be taken from an authentic Chinese food menu. No doughy sweet and sour chicken balls for this gal.

Or Indian. Anything cooked with curry and coconut milk gets high marks. That can be chicken, beef, goat, or vegetables. Some of the most delicious dishes I’ve ever tasted were some variety of vegetarian curry with nary a shred of meat.

Back here on the North American continent, a grilled cheese sandwich made with perennial, plastic, waxy, orange American cheese slices and bread and butter pickles on the side is my version of gastronomic heaven. I did say comfort food, not healthy food.

With American Thanksgiving tomorrow, I’ve been overwhelmed this past couple of weeks by unrelenting food come-ons. The allure of a scrumptious turkey dinner with all the trimmings is offered everywhere.

Images abound on TV, in store flyers, on store shelves of perfectly roasted golden brown turkey, bright red cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes (as opposed to mashed potatoes for a pop of color I believe) and sides. Apparently an American side favorite is green bean casserole. Never tried it so I don’t get it. Maybe one day.

My must-have, go-to, absolutely favorite turkey dinner side is stuffing. I would almost eat that as my Thanksgiving entree. I’ve rarely met a stuffing I didn’t love. It is a very hard dish to screw up.

Yet again, like Diane’s trifle, stuffing is best reserved for special occasions. Even I can see that too frequent consumption of a butter soaked, high carb, and high cholesterol dish isn’t medically advisable.

Grocery stores offer everything you need to celebrate Thanksgiving at home. Our favorite local restaurants offer an array of turkey dinner specials with all the trimmings.

We are lucky to have the choice. If we don’t want the hustle and hassle of making a turkey dinner that saddles us with three days worth of dirty dishes and leftover turkey until January, eat out.

Thanksgiving seems way too close to Christmas in the US anyway. Thanksgiving decorations sit side by side on the shelves with miniature Christmas trees. The marketing tsunami seems relentless from late September when the Halloween hype starts until we get through Thanksgiving and then Christmas.

Christmas is the one special day that shuts down our collective consumerism for about 24 hours. That’s just long enough to enjoy some sacred space and time with friends and loved ones before we hit the Boxing Day sales.

Make it through the festive New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day dinners and voila!! Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.

If there is consolation to be found in bracing ourselves to prepare for all these non-stop fall celebrations, it is that food is usually abundant and delicious. I’ll take comfort in that.