The Hamilton Spectator

Nobody wants new traditions, especially at Thanksgiving

Lorraine Sommerfeld

Thanksgiving this year featured duelling schedules. I always tell the kids to just tell me what works for them, and move dinner around accordingly. It meant this year, we ended up with a Friday turkey.

Christopher had been quite exacting when he mentioned a turkey — three times.

“Of course I’ll do a turkey,” I told him. “You made fajitas once. That was wrong.”

It’s true. One year, staring down the barrel of an all-day cooking session to pull off the traditional meal had just been too much. So, I went with one of their favourites — fajitas — and Christer has since called it The Year We Had Graciasgiving. He brings it up frequently.

I’m good at making a turkey. I’m fine with all the veggies. I fall down at stuffing and gravy and cranberry sauce and pies, but my sisters step in nicely. This year,

the sisters wouldn’t be here. I started digging around for recipes, then got in the car and went to Denningers. I plunked two pies, two envelopes of gravy and two packages of stuffing on the belt. I could hear my mother gasp.

The stuffing looked horrible, like grey spackle. I hoped it would look better when I opened it. The pies looked amazing. Arlene, my high school English teacher who is now like family, was coming over. She’s a great cook and I told her to come early with a meat thermometer because it’s never too late to start doing things properly.

We have a single high stool in the kitchen that we call the interrogation chair. She sits on it, nursing a glass of wine, while I cook. She saw me put the stuffing in a casserole dish. “Ew,” she remarked.

“Yeah, it looks pretty gross. I don’t eat this stuff.”

“Why does it look like that?” She hopped off the chair and fished the wrapping out of the garbage. Peering over her glasses, she started listing off the ingredients. It was taking her a while.

“There can’t be that many things in this,” I told her.

“There isn’t. I’m reading it in French now. To see if it gets any better.”

I started making garlic bread, because great garlic bread goes with everything. The kids all arrived together and Sarah got excited when she saw the garlic bread. Christopher stood in the doorway, inhaling deeply.

“Yessss, turkey. No fajitas,” he announced.

I stuck a knife in a squash but then announced I was too tired to cut up squash. Ari shrugged and opened another bottle of wine. Arlene and I poked the thermometer into the turkey and stared at it.

“I think it’s broken,” I told her. “Maybe. I haven’t used it in years. I come here for turkey,” she said.

“I usually just wiggle the leg. Nobody’s died yet.”

After tapping the thermometer a few times, I threw it in the garbage, wiggled the leg, and pronounced the turkey done.

As the food hit the table, nobody noticed the squash was missing. I put the stuffing on a hot pad. Ari wrinkled up his nose.

“Ew. What’s that?” “Stuffing.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

The conversation was spirited. The laughter went higher as the serving bowls were depleted and more wine corks got pulled. I started to clear and looked at the stuffing, most of which remained in the dish.

“Was anyone brave enough to try this?” I asked.

“Oh, I ate it,” said Pammy. “It was good.” We all looked at her. “What? It was fine.”

The next day Roz sent me a picture of her stuffing. She’d been horrified at how much I’d spent on the grey paste that had not, in fact, gotten any better after I’d opened it. I told her to stop bragging.

Next year, there had better be sisters.

GO

en-ca

2021-10-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thespec.pressreader.com/article/282016150514801

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