Tree Peeps: Recreating a meal

I found (online) the recipes my sister, Briana, and I used to make a delicious Friendsgiving (aka Thanksgiving) Feast in 2004.
I don't think I am surprised by how much this means to me...but you might be.

The more I think about this meal, the deeper I find myself lost in memory:
I think of my sister; she died a little over 3 years ago.
I try to remember what I thought of her at the time, (bossy older sister? emotional?)
how I saw her, (she was older than me, she struggled with things, kind of mothered me)
how I saw myself (cooler than others? shy, but self confident at same time)
What she was up to (starting midwifery school, worked in the herbs and supplements section of The Good Earth, dating Gian)
What I was up to (taking Swedish, Icelandic, plant, fungus, and lichen classes; riding my beautiful bike to school at night for yoga and Scandinavian Choir; planning 3 month trip to Iceland; sewing all my clothes; rooftop urban garden; etc., etc., need I continue? my life was awesome)
Our house (The most gorgeous, charming apartment above an antique store on Center street, the historic main street of Provo. This remains my favorite place I have ever lived. I will always adore my 2 years there and everything about that house/apt. and era of my life. The most self discovering / self defining 2 years of my independent life. After I got past the "first year away from home" antics (daily naps and eating soft serve ice cream at all 3 meals) and clinging to my high school boy obsession ... but before Briana moved to Salt Lake and I had other long term boyfriends. This era was truly me, independent, un-tethered, and sadly I have no one with whom to relive the glory years because Briana is gone and I never had close girl friends.
Our friends (while looking to rent, we saw a beautiful old house, but some boys turned in their deposit before we did. At the time, we were so bummed some stupid frat boys (we had never met them, but they were boys so they must be jocks) were going to live in our dream house and probably ruin it...but then we found our apt above the antique store and met a bunch of cool guys at church and found out they all lived in that house we had wanted! Gian Pierotti, Jared Clark, Ruel Brown, Alan Ludwig, Chris Coy and Mike Kelly (didn't live there, but were friends) I am probably forgetting someone, sadly...All those guys are amazing artists. They actually studied art in college and are still doing it as their profession. They are all so cool and I am sure have no idea how much I love them and how much I learned from them - they are all 5-10 years older than I am and hopefully don't judge me too much for being naive and immature when I was 19-21 years old :)

When Briana died, a part of me died, too. It actually had started to die when I moved to Seattle and then when I got married. It doesn't have to be bad that a part of me died, because you can't stay the same your whole life. I can't live my whole life like I'm in college with my sister as a room mate, doing whatever the hell we want (making food, collecting old stuff from DI, crafting). Eventually that would probably have gotten stale, we would fight, need to make our own money :) want our own privacy, and we would want to marry and have kids...but both Briana and I are slow to change, and I think we felt ripped out of our comfort zones too early when I moved away and was dating Adam (my now husband). As you age, mature, live...parts die and you re-grow, but you are different. I would say I am a better person now (more confident, friendly, realistic, less emotional, less judgmental...in a word: older) but I still miss that era and I still miss Briana and I wish I could see how she aged and changed over time. What things did she do that earlier swore she would never do..? Who would she marry? (you learn a lot about someone by who they marry) What would her kids be like and how would she adapt to motherhood, etc.?

Sometimes I feel selfish missing Briana because a big part of what I miss is the way I was with her, our memories, our "other" life back when we were young and awesome.

Links to recipes coming soon, but here are some photos:

(Salt Lake City igloo Jan 2007)