The first Thanksgiving I cooked for was the hardest. Amity was a tiny
baby–Frank and I both had flu. I managed to stagger into the kitchen
and heat up a can of Campbell’s chicken soup with rice for us to
celebrate with. We were both thankful we could keep the soup down that
day, a sign that we were finally getting better.
I remember
the Thanksgiving when I was 10, when my Aunt Mary let me help make the
giblet gravy. It was delicious. She and I kept tasting it in the
kitchen, and when it was time to serve it we* had none left.
I remember the many holiday meals I shared with Frank’s grandparents.
Grandma Wilczek would cook an authentic Polish feast with lots of
kielbasa. Then we would all drive over to Grandma Cona’s for an Italian
super-spectacular–turkey plus pans of lasagne, meatballs, and sausage.
It’s a miracle we have any arteries left.
I remember when I
realized, 10 years ago, that my computer could help me stage-manage
Thanksgiving. I created timetables, lists of dishes and recipes. I
don’t know how people did all this before they had printers.
I remember last year, when I blogged the universal veggie pot pie and killer brownies along with the
turkey and gravy for carnivores like me.
Now I better get cooking!
* I posted this yesterday but it disappeared. I’m thankful for back-ups!
** Heh. Almost 50 years later, I just realized–Aunt Mary was quick to
claim half the blame for the missing gravy, but she probably didn’t
drink more than a tablespoon of it. No wonder everybody loved Aunt Mary!