Do you remember being the age when you showed those first signs of self-awareness that other families do things differently? You are sitting at the table at your bffs house and, oh crap they’re blessing the food, or maybe, oh crap, you can eat without blessing it, or the more sublime, you mean you can prepare beef without over-salting it and roasting it to the consistency of tire rubber?

When Better Half and I got engaged, we were cranberry sauce novices. Our combined experience was limited to the mysterious gelled substance that made a disgusting slurping noise as it was disturbed from the the vacuum that sealed it in the can. If it wasn’t cylinder shaped and ribbed, it wasn’t a cranberry sauce, it was some sort of fancy impostor.

On impulse, we purchased a bag of ripe cranberries, We assuming people purchased them for snacking on because they were next to the grapes in the produce department, and the dried cranberries tasted pretty good, and heck they had fiber, you can’t really go wrong with fiber.

We popped a few cranberries into our mouths, which immediately caused my face to contort like one of those scary denture-less old ladies you see in the hospital wearing the backless gown wandering down the hallway trying to remember where she parked her Buik, then I spit them into the sink and threatened to lick the shag carpet to eliminate the memory of the unfortunate assault on my taste buds. We decided those berries might not be ripe enough, and chose darker berries for taste test number two, and dude what the hell, those were bitter too. We threw away the bag.

Fast forward to the following year, and my aunt invites us to join her for Thanksgiving dinner. Like a gracious guest who is relieved not be saddled with the burden of cooking for eight, I ask if there is anything we can bring?

Yup, you guessed it. A bag of fresh cranberries. I asked if she was sure, and the Better Half went into a lengthy diatribe about the bitter truth about cranberries. Unconvinced, she insists. Fresh. Cranberries. In. A. Bag.

Fine.

So, we show up with fresh cranberries. In a bag. My aunt tells us, oh the cranberry sauce is easy. Just follow the instructions on the bag. Better Half gives me the, you can’t turn shit into shinola eye-roll, and I think to myself, THERE WERE INSTRUCTIONS? ON THE BAG? FOR REALS? I am such an idiot.

It was easy. Sugar repairs a host of ills when it comes to cranberries. But they aren’t really ill, just misunderstood. It’s easier to make cranberry sauce from scratch than it is to coax that gelatinous glob out of the can….although homemade is ridge-free and I find that suspect.