Thanks­giv­ing, plus a day

Here I sit in a stream of sun­shine com­ing through what are called the “font win­dows” of my bell-ring­ing church, grin­ning idi­ot­i­cal­ly at any­one who walks in the door and might want to buy char­i­ty Christ­mas cards from me.  So far there are no tak­ers on this love­ly late Novem­ber afternoon.

Most­ly what I am doing is recu­per­at­ing from our Thanks­giv­ing rev­el­ries.  I think every fork, knife and spoon, every roast­ing tray, plat­ter and spat­u­la, every pitch­er, glass and plate, was pressed into ser­vice!  How deli­cious were the savoury fla­vors of gar­lic, sage, ham and turkey, the lofty spoons­ful of pota­toes cooked with sharp Ched­dar and shal­lots, the spinach with cel­ery and Gruyere.

 Is there any mar­riage more felic­i­tous than that of but­tery car­rots with Demarara sug­ar and black pepper?

I had for­got­ten the clear, tangy delight of cran­ber­ries sim­mered in cin­na­mo­ny orange juice.

 Of course I can nev­er look at cran­ber­ries with­out think­ing of my par­ents’ first mar­ried Thanks­giv­ing.  In my fam­i­ly, there is noth­ing more mem­o­rable than a mem­o­ry of some­one else’s mem­o­ry, and the sto­ry of my father’s adven­ture with cran­ber­ries is leg­end.  “These don’t seem to be mov­ing in this blender,” he told my moth­er.  [What cran­ber­ries were doing in a blender in any case is a mys­tery to me.]  “Stir them up a bit and see what hap­pens,” she advised, not think­ing to add, “Turn the blender off first.”  They always claimed that when they moved house years lat­er, they were still find­ing bits of mac­er­at­ed cran­ber­ry behind the curtains.

That was the same ill-fat­ed Thanks­giv­ing when my mother’s sleeve caught on her bath­room shelf full of per­fumes brought back from a sum­mer in Europe.  What a fra­grant Thanks­giv­ing it must have been, I imag­ine now.

 And then, at the last minute when their guests were arriv­ing, my father pulled the turkey out of the oven and tipped the cook­ing fat right back inside, watch­ing in dis­may as it caught on smoky fire!  I could only imag­ine, last night, peer­ing anx­ious­ly at my own bird.

My poor par­ents, strug­gling through a new­ly­wed hol­i­day full of dis­as­ter upon dis­as­ter.   What I love about fam­i­ly sto­ries is how quick­ly they turn from tragedy to com­e­dy, usu­al­ly with­in an hour or two.  How hap­py they must have been when the last guests left and they could close the door behind them and begin turn­ing the day into a legend.

Our own turkey-cook­ing yes­ter­day was its usu­al unsci­en­tif­ic, “let’s try this and see what hap­pens” fias­co.  Brin­ing in herbs and kosher salt and pep­per­corns, of course.

The night before, as the best of hus­bands will do on such occa­sions, John sent me a link to a sto­ry about turn­ing my expect­ed four-hour cook­ing time into two.  Why this would be appeal­ing I do not know, since the whole day is spent in the kitchen any­way.  The rev­o­lu­tion­ary method involved flip­ping the poor bird over in all its boil­ing cook­ing liq­uid (“ow, that went right through my SOCK!” John moaned at one mem­o­rable moment) sev­er­al times, which was undu­ly stress­ful.  Out came the ther­mome­ter.  “It’s cook­ing way too fast, turn down the heat!”  Then anoth­er stab.  “Hang on, now it’s cold inside.”

Sigh.

Oven turned up, oven down, turkey in, turkey out, cov­ered in foil, uncov­ered in order that we could snatch away bits of crisp skin to “test it.”

And then as I was sprin­kling “sug­ar” on my car­rots to caramelise them, it was only in the nick of time that I noticed my “sug­ar” was in fact… cous­cous. (It prob­a­bly would have been a great dish, car­rots and cous­cous, but not at that moment.)

In short, it was a typ­i­cal Thanks­giv­ing afternoon.

 In years past, how­ev­er hap­py our Thanks­giv­ings have been here in our adopt­ed home­land, I have always felt a bit melan­choly, a bit home­sick for the hol­i­days of child­hood when chil­dren and guests were hang­ing around all day, watch­ing foot­ball and hav­ing a day off usu­al activ­i­ties.   It seemed sad to me, the first few years we were here, to have the day quite and alone while child and hus­band were at school and work, to have the din­ner at night just like any ordi­nary din­ner party.

Sud­den­ly last night, though, I looked around at my beloved guests – old friends and new – and real­ized that this is the new nor­mal.  I dote on the moment when Avery and her friends beat a tat­too on the front door, rush­ing in with cold cheeks, demand­ing snacks, then set­tling down to home­work before din­ner.  I real­ly love see­ing my guests come in from the windy dark­ness, bear­ing pies and flow­ers and wine, every­one excit­ed to have “a real Amer­i­can Thanks­giv­ing.”  Some­how every year we man­age to have peo­ple round for whom it’s their first Thanks­giv­ing, and this makes every­thing excit­ing and festive.

The girls at the far end of the table – the teenage end – read aloud a bless­ing I had con­coct­ed from read­ing var­i­ous friends’ love­ly mes­sages about their holidays.

“We wel­come you here to our Amer­i­can hol­i­day.  We are thank­ful for Thanks­giv­ing — a time to pause and reflect on the joys and sor­rows that a full life con­tains, to appre­ci­ate the gifts of love and life, to cher­ish the mem­o­ry of those who are not present, to rec­og­nize our absolute grat­i­tude to friends and fam­i­ly who ARE present.  Today we think of the love we feel for those clos­est to us, and we hold dear all our hopes for the future and for rec­on­cil­i­a­tions to come. Thank you, Thanksgiving.”

We explained to our Eng­lish guests that it had been peo­ple just like them who brave­ly climbed on the Mayflower to endure the hideous jour­ney to the New World and the win­ter of sick­ness to come, dur­ing which half their num­ber died.  “They left Eng­land seek­ing greater reli­gious per­se­cu­tion than was avail­able at home,” John dead­panned, para­phras­ing Gar­ri­son Keil­lor.  It is hard to believe that our exces­sive­ly jol­ly, fes­tive hol­i­day has any roots in despair and hunger.

I now feel that the sense of won­der, of appre­ci­a­tion for our Amer­i­can tra­di­tions, the grate­ful con­sump­tion of my lov­ing­ly pre­pared dish­es, is the best Thanks­giv­ing we could ask for.  It has a dif­fer­ent qual­i­ty from the famil­iar child­hood hol­i­days full of fam­i­ly faces we saw every year on that day.  Every year here, in what have become our real lives, there is a feel­ing of new­ness to the splen­dour of the occasion.

Sit­ting here in the peace­ful church, sell­ing Christ­mas cards to absolute­ly no one, gaz­ing on my beloved bellcham­ber and antic­i­pat­ing the hard work that tomorrow’s prac­tice will bring, the friend­ly ban­ter among us as we pull our ropes in the blink­ing sun­shine com­ing through the win­dows, I am content.

Turkey Meat­ball Soup

(feeds the multitudes)

1 turkey car­cass, plus the veg­eta­bles that roast­ed with it in the tin

2 lbs/1 kilo ground turkey (turkey mince)

enough breadcrumb/milk mix­ture to make the meat­balls JUST stick togeth­er — per­haps 3/4 cup of each

pinch onion powder

pinch gar­lic powder

pinch dried parsley

pinch salt

4 car­rots, sliced

4 stalks cel­ery, sliced

1 cup tiny pas­ta stars, already cooked

Sim­mer turkey car­cass in enough cold water to cov­er him for as long as you can, sev­er­al hours at least.  Poke at the car­cass to remove the meat from the bones when­ev­er you pass by.

Pass the turkey broth through a sieve into a stock pot (this is an impor­tant step: one year I poured it RIGHT DOWN THE DRAIN).

Mix the turkey mince with the milk, bread­crumbs and herbs until all is thor­ough­ly mixed.  Bring turkey broth to a high sim­mer and form golf-ball-sized meat­balls to drop into it, one by one.  When they float to the sur­face, add the sliced car­rots and cel­ery and sim­mer for 20 min­utes.  Add the cooked pas­ta and ENJOY.

Hap­py Thanksgiving!