I may not have time for this tomorrow so I’ll post it today. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, maybe even more beloved to me than Christmas. Its homeyness, its associations with family, the food, all delight me.
Thanksgiving is a very American holiday and it’s American in a very peculiar way that I think reveals the contradictions inherent in this country. The foods served—turkey stuffed with bread, potatoes, corn, pumpkin, and so on—are not the foods of wealth. They are the foods of poverty but they are provided not only in enormous abundance but overabundance, excess even. The ultimate prayer for our American Thanksgiving ranges somewhere between a humble grace and Charlie Anderson’s prayer from the movie Shenandoah.
May you all have a peaceful and blessed Thanksgiving and may next year be better for all of us than this one has been!
I would appreciate hearing how you celebrate Thanksgiving, any distinctive traditions you and your family might have, and any other thoughts you might have on the occasion.
I wish it was distinctive, but……….
After the passing of my grandparents, when the entire family gathered in Indianapolis, practically to the tune of over the river and through the woods, its been somewhat pedestrian. Generally Manhattan or downtown Chicago. Things change, I guess.
So I was watching “The Five” on Fox and the bumper music is Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks.” Heh. Can’t beat that….
Tomorrow marks the 20th time we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving since my wife and I met, and the 19th in which we’ve celebrated by staying at home. After we moved in together for college, we determined to stay home for Thanksgiving, as (a) we were planning on going home for Christmas and (b) the time spent traveling and visiting could be better spent that close to finals. It’s become our favorite holiday BECAUSE we stay home. We’ve traveled for all the others, but not this one!
The main traditions? Largely the same as everyone else’s. We eat turkey with all the trimmings. (My wife has perfected her turkey skills, and I have never eaten a better bird.) Follow the meal (which has been getting prepped since last night) with a little bit of lounging and then a marathon session (for me) of washing dishes. (No dishwashing machine in the current house, but even when we’ve had one it was never enough and much was always done by hand.) Follow that with a total collapse in front of the TV, usually to watch a disappointing football game or two. (Tomorrow’s games don’t look all that good, save that the NFL is so wild these days that you never know what you’re going to get in any game.)
Along the way we’ll imbibe our favorite wine, reflect on the things that were good from the previous year, try to avoid thinking of whatever has gone wrong, and think of friends and family. At some point, perhaps tonight, we will watch the infamous WKRP Thanksgiving episode. Friday perhaps we’ll dare some shopping, but usually we skip that nightmare. Perhaps we’ll just take our daughter to a park instead.
But the main thing is WE will be home together, with our daughter and our cats, and that is always the best of things.
I may have told this story before but I’ve found that when people say “Largely the same as everyone else’s”, it ain’t necessarily so. There are frequently little touches that they don’t even think about that set them apart. One example is that Jewish families might have challah, matzo, or kasha in their stuffing.
One time I was chatting with the owner of our local Chinese take-away (who’s about my age, was born here, and whose family has been here for about a century) what they ate for Thanksgiving. He said, “Oh, you know. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes—like everybody else.” I pried a little deeper and he chuckled and confessed that they always made eggrolls, served rice, and had at least one Chinese vegetable dish.
My wife and our kids are in the kitchen making pumpkin pie and cranberry jello salad to take to my parents tomorrow. The boy’s got the salad, the girl’s making the pie. Tomorrow, I assume it will be turkey, potatoes, deviled eggs, my sister in law’s vegetarian dish (green bean casserole?), rolls, etc. I’m wondering whether I should go drive to see some tornado damage across town, or if that’s just creepy. One hit a block from my sister, who just lost a trampoline.
We switch years btw/ parents and last year my in-laws decided they didn’t want to prepare the food anymore. So, last year, Thanksgiving was at our place with my red beans and rice as the main dish and a small turkey as the side. My kids would rather have red beans than turkey, so I made ’em tonight.
I baked the pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake today, put the turkey in the brining solution, and prepared the stuffing (cornbread, with just the bread and vegetables for the part that will go in the bird….and a separate dish with chorizo added, so that everyone can choose.) Eldest daughter got in from college today and made the cranberry “salad”. It’s a decadent Southern style jello salad, cranberry sauce and crushed pineapple mixed into the jello layer with a cream cheese and whipped cream layer above and topped off with buttered pecans….yeah, salad is a misnomer and yes we do eat it as a side dish even though it should rightfully be a dessert.
Tomorrow the bird will go in the oven and we’ll prep the potatoes (for mashies of course), vegetables and rolls. We settled on green beans (fresh ones with almonds, not the dreadful casserole) and cauliflower which will be prepared polonaise style. Rolls will be sweet potato biscuits this year.
Mixed heritages go into this (Polish ancestry of myself and hubs, and the chorizo is a nod to our son’s Guatemalan pedigree.) a good bit of Southern influence since we’ve been down here most of our lives, and Thanksgiving food is such a great fit for Southern influence.
All of this for only six of us… Couldn’t get everyone together this year unfortunately. More leftovers for us though. Sammies, maybe a pot pie, and a wild rice with turkey and dried cranberries, probably over the weekend. I made an extra large batch of bolognese too though, because nothing tastes better than Italian when you’re ready for a break from Thanksgiving leftovers.
Got home late from emergency case, so just finished pumpkin chiffon pie, which is now a staple for us. Made a lemon chiffon also for pumpkin haters. We all get up and cook in the morning, all tried and true except for the sweet potatoes that we fight over every year. Wife’s turn to decide this year so we will just bake them. Every Thanksgiving there is either a catastrophe or something really good happens. Things are seldom dull. This year we are hoping that our nephew, who got kicked out of/left his house and lived with us for two years when he came out, and his father will be here together for the first time when he also brings his partner. We are neutral territory and hoping it goes well.
Steve
My in-laws came down here this year and we will host Christmas as well. We decided to have our Thanksgiving meal yesterday and today (Thursday), we are going to Universal Orlando.
As usual, I’m in charge of the Turkey and stuffing, which I have down to a science. Everyone, including the kids, made, or helped make, a side dish. Absent this year was potatoes, mashed or otherwise.
Then there was a lot of lounging and we watch National Lampoon’s Christmas vacation.
I am duly impressed by how many men contributing to this blog are involved in Thanksgiving cooking — pies, turkey etc. My husband’s service was picking up the Whole Food’s ordered turkey yesterday. He was the only male in a line-full of women. With his friendly nature he engaged everyone in conversations, having them eventually sharing smart phone pictures, holiday stories, propagating early Thanksgiving harmony among strangers. Unfortunately, he became so absorbed in the social peripherals that he got a smaller turkey than was ordered. Oh well, more stuffing will make up the difference.
Holiday dinners have been home affairs, through-out my life. Only once did my mother-in-law take the family out to a posh restaurant for Thanksgiving. It seemed kind of cold and lacking, IMO — a holiday “outlier’ not to be repeated again. Most of the time holidays are at our home. I collect rust-colored leaves, make wreaths, and have handcrafted decorations, including my favorite — an old-fashioned Pilgrim couple who officiates over the spirit of this holiday. I cook without directions and cookbooks, just by instinct and whatever seems appropriate for the moment or occasion. Consequently, the stuffing has different ingredients every year. The sweet potato casserole, though, is a favorite, and red-skinned mashed potatoes with gravy will be replacing the usual wild rice. A leafy salad, biscuits, cranberry relish, brussel sprouts and pies brought over by friends, comprise the rest of the menu. Some business friends are dropping by earlier to share some champagne, and then Holiday Central takes over, and the mystery of friend/family dynamics begins.
As I think I’ve mentioned before, I do all of the cooking and all of the shopping in our household. It was an accommodation we reached early in our marriage. I was clearly the better book; I preferred to shop daily while my wife preferred to shop weekly or bi-weekly. So I continue my practice of shopping every day and my wife, who’s also a pretty fair cook, sets foot in a grocery store just a few times a year.