Have you started planning for Thanksgiving yet? I have gotten as far as ordering our fresh turkey from our local supplier and rummaging through boxes of china and linens in the laundry room. Ordering the turkey was daunting. It involved a Q&A, ticking off boxes, and pressing hard enough through multiple layers to be sure the carbon paper was effective. I was queried further to see if I needed any other prepared fixings:pies, mashed potatoes, candied yams… Heavens! I can’t imagine not doing my own baking, roasting, boiling and peeling for Thanksgiving. (Although I have a friend who is considering buying the whole meal already cooked this year. She has a valid excuse – her husband has been abroad since July and won’t be home until after Christmas.)I saw an ad for already-cubed-squash – so you don’t need to go to all that bother. If I wasn’t going to bother, then I suppose we could have meatloaf instead of turkey, too. Or worse, we could go out!
We like a little formality at Thanksgiving. Maybe it is my New England upbringing, or maybe it is books I have read. I have already unearthed the Mr. and Mrs. Pilgrim salt and pepper shakers that adorn the table every year. And then the silver will need polishing, a task normally assigned to any visitor we are quality testing. Many have been found lacking in enthusiasm and attention to detail… We will also need to scrape the wax drippings off the candlesticks, iron the napkins and the tablecloth, and peel five pounds of potatoes. By hand. Each task. We are not going to be able to use any iPhone apps for these chores. And yet we forget how convenient and easy it is to go about our modern Thanksgiving routines. We have the groceries. We have an oven. We have a young man who will peel the potatoes, and then will lovingly baste the turkey every half hour. Ethan Frome and Jo March didn’t have central heating or gourmet grocery stores. They probably had to pluck their own turkeys after they chopped all the firewood. I got to tick off a box and reserve our fresh, hormone-free, 20 – 25 pound bird in a matter of moments, as I clutched my still-warm artisan whole grain baguette, and leaned over the shiny glass case full of refrigerated meats.
Some years we have had boisterous Thanksgiving crowds, with waves of visiting children chasing the dog, annoying the cats and interrupting the yabbering wine-drinking adults with requests for food and drink. What were they thinking? There was a year when we sat outside and set up a long banquet table for the children – no wobbly card table for them that time. We had strings of Christmas lights ablaze, with music surging through the house, as the turkey roasted and the dinner rolls were burned to a crisp. I found that gravy-stained guest list in a well-thumbed cookbook the other day. I simply cannot imagine having the energy to organize another Barnum and Bailey-sized production like that ever again!
One year we had a sad singleton friend come for dinner, and we barely spoke above a whisper in the candlelit dining room, because our three-month old had finally fallen asleep in the wind-up swing, after a day of vigorously exploring her operatic ranges. We were thankful for so much that year. And a peaceful dinner with a lonely friend was exactly what we had wished for.
The 3-month old opera star is now a college-age pescatarian, which means we have to be flexible about our annual turkey feast. She did not respond to my text asking if I should look for a tofu turkey. (Should I consider that a snub? Or am I really as ridiculous as her silence seems to imply?) And what would she say if we suddenly changed gears and left her to graze a bowl of warm quinoa with a side of nuts and twigs while we chowed down on a platter of turducken? A few years ago the Pouting Pescatarian and I visited London over her Thanksgiving break. This was before she was thinking about her food sources, and we hungrily inhaled a couple of turkey and cranberry sandwiches from Pret a Manger, while blessing the Queen for our humble American Thanksgiving. The P.P. also enjoyed a couple of hearty steak and stout pies before we returned home. Meanwhile, at home, they did not miss us one little bit – they had a manly New England clam bake cooked out on the grill. Maybe a lobster is just the answer for the prescatarian proposition…
This year it will be just the four of us, and though our production values will not be epic, we are looking forward to the tried and true dishes that have us remembering those old days. We introduced the concept of cornbread last year, but I am not sure that it has replaced the traditional, easily incinerated Parker House Rolls. Cornbread will continue in its supplemental role. We have replaced the electric knife, that devilishly clever kitchen implement from the 50s that ensures we get respectable and uniform slices of turkey. A couple of years ago it died, mid-meal, and we had to resort to cutting the turkey up as recommended by Bon Appétit Magazine. Foolproof or not, it was somehow just not the same: https://www.bonappetit.com/columns/the-foodist/article/the-no-fail-guide-to-thanksgiving-turkey-carving
A vote has not yet been taken, but I think the family favorite Flourless Chocolate Cake will beat out the Boston Cream Pie for dessert. (No one here is a pumpkin pie fan.) I might explore a many-layered cake, too, although that might be regarded as being a bit pretentious. https://food52.com/recipes/2905-chocolate-layer-mousse-cake-with-cognac-and-bittersweet-chocolate-curls. And, as always, there will be the very fancy and ever so gourmet After Eight mints for post-dessert. Some traditions we will never outgrow.
Let’s count our blessings as we look forward to the holidays, and while we ruminate about all the comforts we enjoy in the twenty-first century, let’s help fight hunger in our communities. Here is an easy-peasy link to contribute to No Kid Hungry: https://www.nokidhungry.org/. They take PayPal, so you don’t even need to wander off to find your credit card. And don’t forget folks who benefit from your local food bank, please.
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
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