Hap­py Thanks­giv­ing Eve

It’s the calm before the storm.  I’m sit­ting here peace­ful­ly in my study watch­ing my ever-patient hus­band tin­ker with one of the thou­sands of lit­tle fairy lights I bought to dec­o­rate the din­ing room (which is also the kitchen, and the library, of course), send­ing my par­ents flow­ers for tomor­row, mak­ing timeta­bles about when things need to get done tomor­row, when 19 peo­ple will be seat­ed around my table.

Of course, here in Eng­land the vast major­i­ty of the pop­u­lace are not excit­ed, they’re at school and work, plan­ning noth­ing more sus­tain­ing to eat than a nice pack­et of fish and chips or a plate of shep­herd’s pie, so it’s not the all-hands-on-deck Cookathon that it is in Amer­i­ca.  I real­ly do miss that Thanks­giv­ing feel­ing: of a gray day (always, it seemed!), the last leaves waft­ing down, every­one home and under­foot, an old movie or foot­ball game on in the back­ground, and all sorts of unac­cus­tomed peo­ple in the kitchen.  In my child­hood, this unlike­ly cast of char­ac­ters includ­ed my poor moth­er, who was nev­er hap­py in the kitchen, and my father, who appeared on spe­cial occa­sions like Christ­mas morn­ing to make the pan­cakes and Lil’ Smok­ies sausages.  And of course, being a man, he carved any turkey that made its way into our kitchen, in that unspo­ken divi­sion of labor that holds sway in every Amer­i­can house­hold I know.

On Thanks­giv­ing Day, how­ev­er, every­one put a hand in.  In the old­en, old­en days, my moth­er’s moth­er taught me to make per­fect turkey gravy in her kitchen in South­ern Indi­ana, her matron­ly curves gir­dled and a lace-trimmed half apron around her waist.  Then in lat­er years, we gath­ered at my aunt and uncle’s house in Ken­tucky (get­ting lost at the same high­way junc­tion every year, lis­ten­ing to our par­ents ami­ca­bly bick­er­ing over whose fault it was) and my grand­fa­ther com­man­deered the enor­mous turkey to get every morsel of meat from its bones.  As the elder male states­man of the fam­i­ly, he accept­ed this as his right and respon­si­bil­i­ty.  Leave no wing intact!

The stuff­in­gs: one plain for nor­mal peo­ple and one stud­ded with oys­ters for my moth­er’s fam­i­ly who claimed to like such fishy sur­pris­es.  The canned green beans, smoth­ered in canned cream of mush­room soup with crunchy fried Dur­kee onions.  The hot rolls and but­ter (no mar­garine on Thanks­giv­ing!), the mashed sweet pota­toes with marsh­mal­lows on top!  Jel­lo with fruit cock­tail swim­ming in it and cran­ber­ry sauce, fra­grant with orange zest, fresh­ly made — which was a sur­prise in a fam­i­ly oth­er­wise addict­ed to things in cans.  The pump­kin pies and a pecu­liar Indi­ana con­coc­tion called “sug­ar cream pie,” and pecan pie, gold­en with Karo syrup.  All served with my aun­t’s gleam­ing sil­ver, sparkling crys­tal and lace table­cloth which was brought out, I would bet, on Christ­mas Day also and that was it, for the year.

It was a love­ly lit­tle dozen years or so, those Thanks­giv­ings, between being just old enough to remem­ber, and mov­ing away to set up house­keep­ing on my own.  What nice years, all the fam­i­ly intact and healthy, plen­ty of grand­par­ents to go around, the feel­ing of tra­di­tion and being looked after, good smells ema­nat­ing from a kitchen that was some­body else’s, and all the more deli­cious for not hav­ing pro­duced them myself.

Thanks­giv­ing holds a spe­cial place in my heart because it was on just such a gray, savoury-smelling Ken­tucky after­noon 27 years ago that I real­ized I was in love!  For the first time, and the last time, as it turned out.  My boyfriend had swanned off to some exot­ic place like Flori­da or St Barths with his fam­i­ly, and I had decamped home with my fam­i­ly, only to dis­cov­er that I… missed him!  What an unex­pect­ed sen­sa­tion, paradix­i­cal­ly pleas­ant because it meant some­thing won­der­ful had hap­pened to me.  Thanks­giv­ing… just the right word.

A friend of mine said today that the hol­i­days depressed her, and she won­dered why.  While I don’t myself get depressed at this time of year, quite the oppo­site, I could under­stand why she felt as she did.  I think there is a lit­tle child­hood left in each of us, a yearn­ing for days when some­one else was in charge, all the deci­sions had been made by grownups, who would stand or fall on their wis­dom.  No respon­si­bil­i­ty!  Even if I even­tu­al­ly took over the gravy-mak­ing from my grand­moth­er, as she no longer could stand com­fort­ably at the stove, it was still some­one else’s kitchen, stove, oven, whisk.  A good feel­ing, and one I think we have to achieve a cer­tain age to remem­ber, and to value.

So I will say this year that there is one thing I am new­ly thank­ful for, and that is the deep mem­o­ry of lit­tle-girl Thanks­giv­ings, and young-woman Thanks­giv­ings, hap­py and sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly.  Thank­ful that I now have my own lit­tle fam­i­ly, my own child to cook for.  And as always, thank­ful that my long-ago boyfriend has spent the last 20 Thanks­giv­ings in my grownup kitchen, carv­ing the turkey as a good man should.  Hap­py Thanks­giv­ing, everyone.

Pump­kin Pie

(serves 8, if there are oth­er pies around as well)

1 soup-size can pump­kin puree (not pie filling)

1 soup-size can evap­o­rat­ed milk

1 cup light brown sugar

2 large eggs

splash vanil­la extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

pinch salt

1 large deep pie crust (9‑inches)

Sim­ply mix every­thing but the crust (!) togeth­er in a large bowl with a hand mix­er till thor­ough­ly mixed, then pour into pie crust.  Bake at 425F/210C for 15 min­utes, then turn heat down to 325F/160C and bake a fur­ther 40 min­utes or until pie is set in the mid­dle.  Cool and serve with whipped cream or ice cream.