We don't have big plans for the day, probably some studio time and then macaroni and cheese for dinner with brussels sprouts on the side. Over the years, we've done every vegetarian version of Thanksgiving imaginable, but this year we're keeping it simple with some decadent mac'n'cheese.
Exactly How Thankful Are You?
If you were to list the things you are thankful for, how long would your list be? I would have a very long list. I would probably start with caffeine though (it's early). But you can be sure that your name would not be very far down from the number one spot. That's how I feel about you.
I miss my grandmother this year and her version of Thanksgiving dinner which was usually a turkey, mashed potatoes, lots of gravy, red chile, a salad, rolls, and stuffing that she made pressed solidly into a pan and cut into squares. In later years, she added a pasta dish for Dave. I seem to remember that biscochitos usually made their first appearance around this time along with other things for dessert, usually a kind of spice cake topped with Cool Whip.
We would all serve ourselves from the stove and sit at the table and eat.
I'm not doing this memory justice at all, not at all. I'm not explaining enough about the pots and pans she had and how worn and familiar they were--that old, dented roasting pan, the cast iron skillet--and how she used them both for cooking and for serving. I'm not explaining about the squat square wooden salad bowl she used and the bottled Italian dressing she liked. I'm not explaining about how the huge chest freezer in the kitchen was used as a kind of buffet or how there was usually fake poinsettia flowers in a cut glass vase on the table and plastic placemats.
I'm not explaining how sometimes it was a kind of obligatory self-torture, Thanksgiving. But everyone knows how family is. I'm glad that there was never alcohol involved in Thanksgiving dinner--we drank iced tea or Kool-Aid or, later, soda--so there was no alcohol-fueled insanity. It was all just ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill insanity.
I'm thankful for these memories, however much editing it has taken me to get there.
We weren't much for family photos around the dinner table, but I do have two photos of my grandmother in her kitchen.
That's her in her housecoat. The curtain behind her is not window dressing, but a covering to the doorway to the pantry. That's an old picture, meaning of course that it predates me. I'm looking for something familiar in the objects around her, letting my memory snag not on the objects themselves but on the feeling of childhood's object- focused intensity. (Does that make any sense at all?) I may remember the square yellow canisters and there's something I know about the chair--though maybe when I knew it, it was as a piece of furniture relegated to the yard. I definitely know the letter holder to her left; I was legitimately fascinated by it when I was very young.
And a few years later, the kitchen looked like this.
That's the table where we always sat. It was always, always covered with a tablecloth, but underneath it was a lovely brown wood only scarred in one place by a knife my uncle drunkenly planted there to make a point. I remember the apple-shaped cookie jar (it was later replaced by a large ceramic cat cookie jar) and I know that coffee cup--it's weight, it's shape, it's glaze pattern--on the table with the early eye of a later potter.
Ah, enough.
This Was Breakfast, Part II
I hope you eat breakfast on Thanksgiving morning! You don't want to be starved when the main event rolls around--or so I've heard.
Breakfast part I was a big chopped salad (cucumber, tomato, red pepper, flax seed oil, vinegar, salt and pepper) and coffee. Breakfast part II (above) was cottage cheese and a fuyu persimmon and coffee. Breakfast part III (which I just ate) was another cup of coffee and (I'm ashamed to admit) a 100-calorie pack of Twinkies.
Ay yi yi.
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