salty bake club

Turkey, Dark Chocolate, And Even Darker Gratitude

• sara grace

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Here is where you get in touch. Work with me, share your experience or requests > this is how to reach me. Love, - Sara

Leave the gloss at the door—this Thanksgiving, we tell the truth and still set the table with love. I’m hosting twenty friends, testing a dark chocolate caramel apple cake, and building a long, burgundy-and-olive table that feels like a hug. Alongside the menu and the seating chart, I name the complicated history of Thanksgiving, the harm too often skipped at dinner, and why honesty can live beside joy. We can gather, feed one another, and keep the facts on the table without losing the warmth that makes ritual matter.

From years of yoga teaching, I’ve learned to hold paradox: valuing a technique while refusing to excuse a harmful figure. That lens helps here. I walk through my planning system—guest lists, dietary notes, timelines, and decor—and how execution became a learned skill, not a personality trait. Organization isn’t about perfection; it’s the scaffolding that lets presence and play show up when the doorbell rings. If you’re hosting, you’ll find practical tips to calm the chaos and create an experience your people actually feel.

Then we go deeper than Pinterest gratitude. Real gratitude is somatic; it lands in the body as breath, warmth, and soft shoulders. We talk nervous system regulation, how to stop spiraling when the caramel burns, and a practice I call “dark gratitude”—thanking the hard lessons that reshaped you. Finally, we look ahead with curiosity: can you appreciate the future self you haven’t met yet? If rituals are reminders to remember, this one reminds us to be brave enough to feel. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend who’s hosting, and leave a quick review—what are you grateful for that once hurt?

Speaker:

Loves, it is Thanksgiving week. So you know what that means. Gratitude, food, and celebrating the joys of life. But not without an honest reality check. And we're gonna try to strip away all the bullshit and the fluff that comes along with it. Welcome to this episode of The Salty Bake Club. I'm your host, Sara Grace, and for this one I'm literally munching on cookie crumbles and doughs because I'm recipe testing. I am hosting a Friendsgiving on Saturday, so a couple days after this episode airs, and I have been planning for a while. I will have 20 people over at my place for a huge dinner, and I couldn't be more excited. So in this episode, I do wanna let you in on my planning, on my thoughts on Friendgiving in general. Once again, we're gonna strip away the bullshit that's not all fluff and gratitude and cutesiness. And I want to talk about the why behind which is for me gratitude. But once again, gratitude is such a fluff topic. It is so worn out by Instagram quotes that a part of me really can't stand it anymore. But the other part of me knows that it is essential for a fulfilled life. So with all that in mind, sweeten into whatever you are doing. Let's get into it. Celebrating Friends as a European obviously comes from me being somewhat close to the American tradition. And it wouldn't be fair to let you in the blues for what this holiday actually is. So I want to bring to your attention that Thanksgiving, the original holiday that is celebrated all over the US, dates back to an event that I believe happened in 6021 when the pilgrims just had arrived onto the sacred land of America, and they were facing a winter that was coming much quicker than they anticipated. And so they were like, holy crap, we are fucked. We don't have resources, we don't have enough food, we're literally gonna starve to death. What happened was this beautiful miracle of gratitude that is celebrated onwards. The Native Americans came to their rescue, they literally shared their harvest. So the holiday dates back to this historic event where the Native Americans shared their harvest in a big harvest feast with the pilgrims. Well, what happened after is not so often spoke about on the Thanksgiving table. I also think Abraham Lincoln made it a holiday, I don't know, 200 years after. Whatever. What happened after was that in good colonial manner, the pilgrims were like, wow, these fuckers openly share all that they have with us. They must be really easy to exploit. So after that peaceful and serene harvest feast that we're still celebrating, they stripped away their identity, stole their lands, slaughtered the Native Americans, and fucked them over so hard, they are still facing the effects of the shit show that went on. So, with this new bracket of information, am I celebrating that when I'm hosting my Friendsgiving dinner? Hell no. It is quite horrible, and that is why I'm speaking about it publicly. But here's the thing Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving, in this modern manner that I'm celebrating it in, is also a way to celebrate gratitude and appreciation. And much like the spirit behind the German and Austrian Antidankfest, which is also a harvest feast basically, I think it is so important in this time where the world around us gets a little darker, we don't get so much vitamin D, we might hit some winter depression, to come together, to celebrate the friends, the family, the love that we have in our life. And yes, absolutely, you could argument that we can celebrate that any day of the year, but truth be told, we don't. That's why we need rituals, that's why we need holidays, we need set reminders that kind of force us to pull back the layers of the everyday life and really dive into the more meaningful stuff. It feels like you gotta be able to hold two seemingly opposing parts in one hand. I'm sure I have shared this one on this podcast before, but one of my favorite Carl Gustav Jung quotes is the only thing that comes anywhere near in comprehending the fullness of life is the paradox. So let's invite the paradox for a moment and try to hold two opposing truths. In this case, me celebrating Friendsgiving, knowing that the origins of it and the celebration that is replicated year by year over there in America isn't coming from the most sincere place. And you know what? I have faced struggles like that in my career so often. Many of you know that I teach yoga for a living, I do yoga teacher trainings, and so often I have come across big truths revealing and very potent techniques where I was blown away by the technique or the wisdom behind it, but I strongly disliked the person that was coming up with this technique or that was sharing this wisdom. A really good example is Osho. And I know I'm taking a little detour, but stick with me. There's this really, really potent and very powerful Osho meditation that is brilliant and it works wonders on me. And for the longest time I have not been wanting to do it at all because I knew that it was the Osho meditation. Now, for all the ones who say, Well, what's your deal with Osho? It's pretty known that he's a sexual predator, so you know. I had some points of why I didn't want to try that. And it wasn't until a friend gave me a book of this guru that was called Bhagawan Shri, and I devoured the book. I was like, oh my god, these are such big truth bombs. I love it. Who is this Bhagavan Shri? Well, turns out that was Osho's previous name. And once again, I was in that position where I had to hold two opposing truths in one hand. I still wanted to be very vocal about disagreeing with replicating or contributing to the fame of this person. And yet I had to say that these techniques and these words actually touched me. So that does not, and I will repeat, does not make up in any way for the things that he did. But I do certainly believe that we have to for once talk about the shit that is going on so that we don't throw it under the rug, and not just deny all the things that are attached to this person or this event and make it all bad. Would love to hear your thoughts on that because I know that I'm I'm getting into very murky waters here. But once again, the only thing that comes anywhere close to comprehending the fullness of life is uh the paradox. So in this case, Thanksgiving, a historic holiday being put on one level with a sexual predator. And I wanna put light on that all their while extracting what we can learn from it and how we can implement it in our lives as something good. Wow, I'm in a big manner of explaining myself today. But we're going deeper than that. Now that this is more or less clear, I wanna let you in on my plans. And if you're interested, I'm certainly gonna give away. I'm not gatekeeping here. I'm sending you, I'm sending you my folders. But you gotta text me on Instagram for that. I'm not just, you know, creating a link and sending it all for free to you. I will obviously send it for free if you if you text me on Instagram. But what's the deal? What's gonna happen? I love hosting. I am utterly in love with creating experiences for the people I love. And I always feel like an art director when I do that. I will make color patterns. I have so many folders all over Instagram and my notes app and Pinterest that contribute to this day being just the perfect thread all the way through. And this year, the color scheme is gonna be burgundy with some tints of imagine this rich olive green, but more intense lighter olive green shades. Like some pops of color. And as I said, I'm gonna have 20 people over. That's the most I ever had. And for the first time, it's at our home. Oh my god, I'm so excited to not outsource this event anymore. Usually I did it at my grandparents' place because it is huge and I had enough space to host like 12 to 16 people. But this year, it's gonna be a long table with all of our friends around and my love, my man. We established a name for him, Cree. He's helping me. We are gonna roast a turkey. We're gonna have a lot of vegan sides that will contribute to like a real a good dinner experience for all my vegan friends. And I'm actually daring enough this year to fuck around with my own classical Thanksgiving cake. I'm gonna make it with a twist. It's not gonna be the same as all the years before, but it's still gonna be like a rich, dark chocolate, salty caramel cake. The new flavor that I'm gonna implement is Apple. I want some fruitiness, some tanginess. You know, spicing it up. So, what is key to hosting so many people? You gotta be organized. You gotta have action items, you gotta have a list of things that will get done step by step. Honestly, my notes app is my lifesaver. I have my guest list, I have their diet, I have the menu plan, I have all the ingredients that I need for that. I've written down all the decoration that needs to be done, what I gotta buy by when does the organizational stuff, as in designing the table cards, designing the menu cards, the fabric napkins. And you know, it I it's it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot. But it all comes down to having a good time schedule and good execution skills. And that is something that I have trained myself in. I haven't always had that, and I'm actually really proud and really grateful for that learning, being able to put these more or less newly formed good execution skills into action in such a big manner. And with that, I want to pivot to what Thanksgiving is all about, and that is gratitude, my friends. It is celebrating the good things that you have in life and not taking them for granted. But as I said in the beginning, gratitude is such a, I even want to say whitewashed topic. It is something that you see in hashtags or quotes or on Instagram and Pinterest, and it really sucks to shallow it down so much because it is such a deep one. First, let me note gratitude is not just a thought. Gratitude is a feeling, a body sensation. You cannot only think about the things that you're grateful for. You must dive so deeply to make your body feel this emotion. That's when it works. And to be honest, so often in life we just don't make space to involve ourselves into the presence of the things that we are living, feeling, experiencing deeply enough because we are dissected, we are multitasking so much, we are juggling too many things at the same time. So we're we aren't really going to the depth of those present moments and the things that are blessings to our lives in a daily manner, or at least that's what I'm experiencing. Like, let me know if you're wrong, but that is again why we have to make a ritual out of celebrating our friends like Friendsgiving is for me, or and practicing gratitude on a daily basis because it will so easily slip away from you. And here's another twist on it. Now it is easy to be grateful when everything is good, right? It is easy to look at my friends on that Thanksgiving table and think, wow, I am so blessed with amazing people in my life. But it is not easy to have this body sensation of gratitude when I am in the kitchen five hours before the caramel is just turning black and I'm basically fucking up my own recipe. This is a really easy one. You might argue, well, you're very privileged, Sarah. Just get your shit together and don't dive into the drama of that moment. But the drama of that moment portrays something that we also do on a deeper level or on a bigger scale. We so often just dissolve in the negativity of our own stories, of our own mind, because these negative emotions are so strong, right? And they're so dramatic and they're such good dramas for our head to attach to. So so often we don't let go of that attachment to that story or that drama. Whereas we actually have a choice. We can pivot, we can reroute, we can be like, nope, I'm not gonna let this intrusive thought in. I will decide to take a breath, slow down, and instead of focusing on my despair and what I'm fucking up right now, I will intentionally invite a good or at least a neutral thought, and that is how we regulate ourselves, which is our responsibility as grown-ups. But circling back to gratitude as something that we wanna celebrate and invoke in ourselves day by day. Now, what I wanna introduce is gratitude for things that you once resented. Let's not just practice the fluffy Instagram quotey bright sunny gratitude. Let's celebrate and invoke some dark gratitude. Let's invoke some dark chocolate caramel layer of our own being and celebrate the richness that we experienced because of that. I mean, what are the things that you once resented in your life? I told you that I didn't always have such good execution skills. I would be very good at just juggling things and getting by one way or another. I was really creative in my ways of getting by. But actually, well-planned execution skills that would set me up for success. That was something that I learned really late in life. And for a long time I resented myself for not having my shit together, which in that time kind of equaled the lack of that skill for me. And it was really something that I had to learn, that I had to show up for, that I had to change a lot of habits for, and I had to rewire my own brain in a way that I allowed myself to grow into a person who's actually able to do these kind of things. It's a little bit like earlier in my life I would always identify with being a very insecure person, and I'm saying I identified with that, like that was my persona. I thought of myself as that, and that's just it. Like you can't change who you are, right? Bullshit. You can totally change who you are. Your brain is plastic, you can literally rewire that. Wait, I'm gonna make sure that you don't see my coochie. But I do hope for a moment of appreciation that I dressed up for you today. I'm not just sitting here and keychaus. The Thanksgiving spirit. Back to my point. Gratitude is something that we have to find even in our darkest times, even in those moments where we think we don't have it all together, or where our brain attaches to that notion of lack. I promise you there's always something good in your life. There is always something that you can appreciate and cherish. If you decide to put your mind to it, I invite you to think of the gratitude that isn't pretty. I mean the boundaries that you set that pissed somebody off, or the burnout that forced you into alignment, or when your body forced a big hardcore no upon you to stop and actually rest instead of continuing to hustle? Think for a moment of all those things that happen for you, not to you, even though in the moment it didn't really feel nice. So reflecting back on the year that is behind you, what are the things that were really hard but that made you so much stronger? Can you actually immerse yourself in that feeling of gratitude for some lessons that were fucking hard in the moment that made you a more refined and fulfilled human? I mean, bring on that dark, chocolatey, caramel-rich part of you. What were those moments where you almost burned yourself like I with that caramel sauce so often on Thanksgiving? And what did you draw from these moments? What's that blessing in disguise? And yes, you can be grateful for the lesson and at the same time be happy that the lesson is over. Yes, you can certainly be grateful for the storm because it showed you your values. But then also be thankful that you're inside now, cuddled up with a blanket and not standing in the rain anymore. And as a final twist before I go back to my cookie crumbles and more recipe testing, can we all be grateful for the things that we don't see yet? Can I be grateful for the woman that I'm becoming even though I don't know her yet? I mean, there's so much, very obviously so much in my life that is coming that I have absolutely no idea about and how it's gonna turn out, how it's gonna shape me and change me, like who I will be half a year from now. I have zero clue. But am I able to cherish the unknown so much so that I can even be grateful for it? And I think this is where life gets interesting because we are evolutionary wire to love comfort and to love the safe space. Really, life is so much more interesting out there in the unknown. So, this is what I want to leave you with. Make up your mind and think a little bit about gratitude as a body sensation, not just a Pinterest thought. Think about the dark gratitude in your life, the lessons, the things that you didn't love when it happened, but now you can see how it has shaped you. And give yourself some appreciation for the path that you walked, for the decisions you made, and also for the ones that you will make for that future you that you can't see just yet. Ah, with all that, follow me on my personal Instagram account, Bliss bysaragrace, to be part of my Thanksgiving planning, even more so if I have the mental capacity, I will so drag you along for it all. Last year I've I've made quite a cool series. If you want to go scroll all the way back on my feed, it literally ends with me being in the ice cold water. And you're gonna see me in the lace, bruh. That's all I will say. Go find my last Thanksgiving post. Follow me along for this year's Thanksgiving posts, and I cannot wait to hear how you are celebrating Thanksgiving. Write me a message on Instagram if you wanna have my let's call it organizational roadmap. I hope you all have such a lovely holiday, a time of appreciation, and no bullshit. And with that, I'm gonna see you next week. Thank you. I love you.