Here We Go Again

Yeah, like this would happen. But my thoughts are with you all to be able to fit the turkey in between games today. I heard that you cannot be without a game on tv from noon to midnight. Of course we are gathered aroud the Patriots game today, and thankfully (!!!) it's over about 2:30 so I will jam the stuff on the table at that moment and hope someone can get up to eat. I am limiting game-time snacks (much to TY's dismay). Tough. I have all this food to dispose of - in the nicest way of course.

It's amazing, it's my sixty seventh 0Oh geeze, did I say that?) Thanksgiving, several of which I cannot even remember, several I want to forget! I can't remember many from my childhood, but I do know I didn't like to go out to restaurants on that day- it never tasted right. My mother used to have neighbors in or we would go to their houses for the day because we lived in a neighborhood of post-war transplants from all over the country and many, like us, didn't have relatives close by.

One year the potatoes blew the top off her pressure cooker- that was the year Bernie, a German exchange student, saw us on ladders wiping potatoes off the ceiling and probably longed for his US incarceration to be over.

One year I vaguely remember my parents plucking a turkey before cooking it- probably my dad shot it but I don't know. We were always eating stuff with buckshot and being warned to watch out for it. I think I remember this because I got the feathers to play with afterwards. I also learned about par boiling and burning off pin feathers from my farm-raised mother.

Another year I didn't have Friday off from my job and couldn't get back home so a good friend and I wandered Boston looking for an open restaurant. Back in the 60's even Chinese restaurants were closed so we ended up back at her apartment eating a piece of liver from her freezer and laughing ourselves sick over our sad situation. She died of breast cancer and I think of her and our silly adventures so often. I was 'Rhoda' to her 'Mary Tyler Moore' back in our single days.

One year I had invited a cousin I had never met who was teaching at UMass for a year to come and stay for the holiday. They brought their two babies, we toured Boston to show it off, and I served a huge raw turkey. We ate the periphery and sent the center back to the oven, embarrassed.

One year my five year old daughter was throwing up the morning of Thanksgiving so we had to cancel our plans to go to the in-law's. I cooked a capon just for the family, and when we called to wish the extended family well, my daughter told them I was basting the chicken so it would turn into a turkey. (It never did.) That turned into a good Thanksgiving, just the four of us and our capon with lots to be thankful for.

Several years ago we started staying in Florida because travel over the holiday is so difficult. We have an aunt and uncle nearby and we have them over and usually a neighbor or stray if I hear about someone without family. I miss my own family but sort of feel like I am carrying on my mom's traditon of making it a neighborhood day, and it's usually fun. The stories are new, the guests are upbeat and grateful to not be eating liver, and I have learned how to cook a turkey without pin feathers! Maybe this year will also be one that doesn't fade into all the rest too! I guess the test of time will tell. Happy Thanksgiving.

And a bit of 'hunting and gathering' in the spirit of the day:


I need some socks, never realized how much! These tights (and the ART!) are by Emilio Cavallini, and there is more of him here in his boutique.