Thanksgiving stories
Nov. 25th, 2009 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamagotchaSome holiday rambliness...
The first Thanksgiving meal I cooked was two days after my mother was released from the hospital. She’d had emergency gall bladder surgery, but was determined to host the family dinner despite doctor’s orders to stay flat. We tried to reassure her that it was fine, we’d put the turkey in deep freeze and do it when she was up and around again... she looked a little annoyed and said, “No, I’ll stay on the couch and tell you how to do it.”
I don’t remember much from that meal... lumpy potatoes, my 2-year-old son trying to “help”... but it was a clear demarcation in my mind: before that day, I wasn’t someone who could cook a big dinner for a crowd, and afterwards, I was.
For some reason, this holiday seems to attract drama like no other in the cycle of my year. Looking around on the ‘net, I see I’m not alone. There was the year my mom, fairly well-toasted herself, drank to the eventual reunity of my ex-husband and myself... with both of us and our kids at the table. We all rolled our eyes and pretended not to hear.
Another year, my mom was phoning my sister in New York,. Perhaps there was a little bit of extra sauce involved in this incident, too. Thinking she was against one of the bar stools, she sat down for her chat... but it was one of the wooden TV tables, and it immediately buckled under her. She sailed back into the wall, knocking herself silly and crashing to the floor. I grabbed the phone as it skittered across the room, said “I’ll call you back...” and hung up, then helped my shaken mom up and got her settled onto the sofa with a bag of frozen peas. Once we determined that the worst of her injuries was a bruised dignity, we were able to giggle a bit at her tumble.... until my sister called back in hysterics, convinced the oven had exploded, or worse. To this day, I don’t think she’s quite forgiven me.
Another year, before my ex had left, we were driving with all three kids and a van stuffed with camping gear through the Pacific Northwest. Jeff had been receiving recruitment noises from a company in Washington state, so we decided to drive up and make a vacation of it. My brother lived in the area, too, and we ate our Thanksgiving dinner at his favorite buffet. On the way to the meal, we were driving through some snowy hills... a bright and cold day, not enough snow for bad road conditions but certainly enough to stop and let the kids romp in. Jeff was driving, and I was reading aloud from the Little House books. Jeff made a comment about someone walking, and I looked up to see a youngish man in shirtsleeves, head down, hands jammed in his pockets, trudging along through the slush on the deserted roadside. He had no coat, but was obviously dressed up for dinner. This was in the middle of some national forestland... no houses around for miles. We stopped and asked if he needed a ride, and he quietly accepted. In that way of road travelers everywhere, we didn’t ask any questions. We were out of seats, so the guy hunkered down at nine-month-old Clayton’s feet in the well by the van's sliding door, and seemed to relax as he warmed up. We read a few more chapters of Laura’s story, shared our stash of Satsuma mandarin oranges and Pico de Gallo chips, and then he asked to be let out at a small side road. As he got out, he said that we’d restored his faith in humanity.
The year before we moved to Kansas City, Bill and I took the kids to meet his family in Spokane. Bill’s mom prepared a wonderful meal, using a fabulous old Westinghouse electric turkey roaster. That same trip, she spontaneously gave me a beautiful crib quilt made with rainbow colors she’d dyed herself... I carried it home on the plane in my arms, and treasure it to this day. That year, all the memories are tinged with a deep sadness... 9/11 clouded everything, and I was miscarrying at 11 weeks. The next year, his parents and grandmother visited us in our new home in Missouri, and Lorraine and I made the dinner cooperatively (yes, I really lucked out in the mother-in-law department this time around!). I didn’t know it at the time, but Lincoln had just been conceived.
This year, I began my feast plan by pulling out my battered November 2000 issue of Cooks Illustrated. There are notes and recipes stuffed in it... menus and shopping lists from almost a decade’s worth of holidays. I’m not doing anything terribly innovative this year; it’s just the four of us, and while Clay and Bill will bravely try anything I put in front of them, it’s become clear to me that really, they’d be happiest if I just did the roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. So I’ll do a couple fun things to keep it interesting for me... some onion/bacon/bourbon jam, green beans amandine,... but we’re keeping it pretty simple.
While I was going through my little pile of stained and folded papers, jotting down this year’s game plan, I decided to pull a couple shots to go with my lemon-blueberry muffin. I reached for the bag of ground coffee, and suddenly tears sprang to my eyes.
It’s a bright red foil bag of Kansas City Roastarie Holiday Blend. It’s good, for a flavored coffee... just a hint of bright nutmeg amidst the deep dark chocolaty tones. I’d bought it last year as part of my mom’s Christmas present. But she’d quit drinking coffee, due to her failing health, and never opened it. I brought it home with me after her memorial, tucked in my luggage.
So I’m writing this, drinking that coffee, thinking of all the Thanksgivings I’ve had. Some of the memories are mental pictures of food (the gorgeous “stained glass” turkey my sister made when I was in New York, with wide sage leaves roasted under the skin of the bird; my mom’s beloved Nutty Yam Bake; my grandmother’s hideous Swamp Root Salad). I can dredge up dim memories of sitting at the kids’ table at my grandmother’s house on Marne Ave. in San Francisco. I meditate on all the clean-up I’ve done... polishing the silver, finally being trusted to wash the Good Crystal and China, wiping down cranberry sauce flung by my babies, and one particularly spectacular mess that we all remember now as the Extreme Homeschooling Incident.
And I feel a great surge of gratitude and warmth for my family, my friends, my life. I’m terribly fortunate to have the means to purchase our ingredients... we're even able to afford some extra to support local and organic producers, and then a bit more to share the bounty with those who aren't as fortunate. I have a wonderful kitchen to prepare old favorites and experiment with some new treats (pomegranate martini, anyone?). I’ve got an amazingly supportive and talented partner, who will make our pumpkin pie and keep Linc happy while I putter in the kitchen. I have four fabulous, creative, intelligent and funny children (with a little luck, I’ll have them all here for a bit before Christmas!). My dad and my sister and the rest of my extended family are keeping in touch (hooray for FaceBook!). I’m meeting some great new folks and learning more about my new hometown every day.
I could go on and on in this vein, and utterly bore to tears anyone who has miraculously made it thus far... but I’ll wrap it up for now. There’s a turkey to brine, nuts to roast... and then I think I’ll read some of a Little House book to Lincoln. I hope you all have a warm and welcoming place to spend your holiday. (If you don’t, and you’re one of my new Chicago-area friends, and you’d like to join us, PLEASE consider this an invitation to join us! Email me and we’ll make it happen.)
If you're reading this, know I am very grateful that you care enough about me to read my words. May you have a Thanksgiving Day full of delights and laughter, old memories to retell and new babies to dandle, and at least one bite of something that makes you close your eyes, sigh blissfully and feel so glad to be alive, right here, right now.
The first Thanksgiving meal I cooked was two days after my mother was released from the hospital. She’d had emergency gall bladder surgery, but was determined to host the family dinner despite doctor’s orders to stay flat. We tried to reassure her that it was fine, we’d put the turkey in deep freeze and do it when she was up and around again... she looked a little annoyed and said, “No, I’ll stay on the couch and tell you how to do it.”
I don’t remember much from that meal... lumpy potatoes, my 2-year-old son trying to “help”... but it was a clear demarcation in my mind: before that day, I wasn’t someone who could cook a big dinner for a crowd, and afterwards, I was.
For some reason, this holiday seems to attract drama like no other in the cycle of my year. Looking around on the ‘net, I see I’m not alone. There was the year my mom, fairly well-toasted herself, drank to the eventual reunity of my ex-husband and myself... with both of us and our kids at the table. We all rolled our eyes and pretended not to hear.
Another year, my mom was phoning my sister in New York,. Perhaps there was a little bit of extra sauce involved in this incident, too. Thinking she was against one of the bar stools, she sat down for her chat... but it was one of the wooden TV tables, and it immediately buckled under her. She sailed back into the wall, knocking herself silly and crashing to the floor. I grabbed the phone as it skittered across the room, said “I’ll call you back...” and hung up, then helped my shaken mom up and got her settled onto the sofa with a bag of frozen peas. Once we determined that the worst of her injuries was a bruised dignity, we were able to giggle a bit at her tumble.... until my sister called back in hysterics, convinced the oven had exploded, or worse. To this day, I don’t think she’s quite forgiven me.
Another year, before my ex had left, we were driving with all three kids and a van stuffed with camping gear through the Pacific Northwest. Jeff had been receiving recruitment noises from a company in Washington state, so we decided to drive up and make a vacation of it. My brother lived in the area, too, and we ate our Thanksgiving dinner at his favorite buffet. On the way to the meal, we were driving through some snowy hills... a bright and cold day, not enough snow for bad road conditions but certainly enough to stop and let the kids romp in. Jeff was driving, and I was reading aloud from the Little House books. Jeff made a comment about someone walking, and I looked up to see a youngish man in shirtsleeves, head down, hands jammed in his pockets, trudging along through the slush on the deserted roadside. He had no coat, but was obviously dressed up for dinner. This was in the middle of some national forestland... no houses around for miles. We stopped and asked if he needed a ride, and he quietly accepted. In that way of road travelers everywhere, we didn’t ask any questions. We were out of seats, so the guy hunkered down at nine-month-old Clayton’s feet in the well by the van's sliding door, and seemed to relax as he warmed up. We read a few more chapters of Laura’s story, shared our stash of Satsuma mandarin oranges and Pico de Gallo chips, and then he asked to be let out at a small side road. As he got out, he said that we’d restored his faith in humanity.
The year before we moved to Kansas City, Bill and I took the kids to meet his family in Spokane. Bill’s mom prepared a wonderful meal, using a fabulous old Westinghouse electric turkey roaster. That same trip, she spontaneously gave me a beautiful crib quilt made with rainbow colors she’d dyed herself... I carried it home on the plane in my arms, and treasure it to this day. That year, all the memories are tinged with a deep sadness... 9/11 clouded everything, and I was miscarrying at 11 weeks. The next year, his parents and grandmother visited us in our new home in Missouri, and Lorraine and I made the dinner cooperatively (yes, I really lucked out in the mother-in-law department this time around!). I didn’t know it at the time, but Lincoln had just been conceived.
This year, I began my feast plan by pulling out my battered November 2000 issue of Cooks Illustrated. There are notes and recipes stuffed in it... menus and shopping lists from almost a decade’s worth of holidays. I’m not doing anything terribly innovative this year; it’s just the four of us, and while Clay and Bill will bravely try anything I put in front of them, it’s become clear to me that really, they’d be happiest if I just did the roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. So I’ll do a couple fun things to keep it interesting for me... some onion/bacon/bourbon jam, green beans amandine,... but we’re keeping it pretty simple.
While I was going through my little pile of stained and folded papers, jotting down this year’s game plan, I decided to pull a couple shots to go with my lemon-blueberry muffin. I reached for the bag of ground coffee, and suddenly tears sprang to my eyes.
It’s a bright red foil bag of Kansas City Roastarie Holiday Blend. It’s good, for a flavored coffee... just a hint of bright nutmeg amidst the deep dark chocolaty tones. I’d bought it last year as part of my mom’s Christmas present. But she’d quit drinking coffee, due to her failing health, and never opened it. I brought it home with me after her memorial, tucked in my luggage.
So I’m writing this, drinking that coffee, thinking of all the Thanksgivings I’ve had. Some of the memories are mental pictures of food (the gorgeous “stained glass” turkey my sister made when I was in New York, with wide sage leaves roasted under the skin of the bird; my mom’s beloved Nutty Yam Bake; my grandmother’s hideous Swamp Root Salad). I can dredge up dim memories of sitting at the kids’ table at my grandmother’s house on Marne Ave. in San Francisco. I meditate on all the clean-up I’ve done... polishing the silver, finally being trusted to wash the Good Crystal and China, wiping down cranberry sauce flung by my babies, and one particularly spectacular mess that we all remember now as the Extreme Homeschooling Incident.
And I feel a great surge of gratitude and warmth for my family, my friends, my life. I’m terribly fortunate to have the means to purchase our ingredients... we're even able to afford some extra to support local and organic producers, and then a bit more to share the bounty with those who aren't as fortunate. I have a wonderful kitchen to prepare old favorites and experiment with some new treats (pomegranate martini, anyone?). I’ve got an amazingly supportive and talented partner, who will make our pumpkin pie and keep Linc happy while I putter in the kitchen. I have four fabulous, creative, intelligent and funny children (with a little luck, I’ll have them all here for a bit before Christmas!). My dad and my sister and the rest of my extended family are keeping in touch (hooray for FaceBook!). I’m meeting some great new folks and learning more about my new hometown every day.
I could go on and on in this vein, and utterly bore to tears anyone who has miraculously made it thus far... but I’ll wrap it up for now. There’s a turkey to brine, nuts to roast... and then I think I’ll read some of a Little House book to Lincoln. I hope you all have a warm and welcoming place to spend your holiday. (If you don’t, and you’re one of my new Chicago-area friends, and you’d like to join us, PLEASE consider this an invitation to join us! Email me and we’ll make it happen.)
If you're reading this, know I am very grateful that you care enough about me to read my words. May you have a Thanksgiving Day full of delights and laughter, old memories to retell and new babies to dandle, and at least one bite of something that makes you close your eyes, sigh blissfully and feel so glad to be alive, right here, right now.
