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November 23, 2005
Happy Thanksgiving
Growing up this time of year was very special. I was raised in my grandparents home after my parents divorced. My mother worked the night shift in a cotton mill and my sister and I grew up with my mother's two youngest siblings. I always felt more like they were my brother and sister rather than my aunt and uncle. We were poor and didn't know it. There was always plenty of food on the table and we had what we needed but not a lot extra. When the holidays came around we were bountifully blessed with plenty of extras.
Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter were the major events we celebrated. Christmas being the creme de la creme of all holidays. In order to get to Christmas we had to make it through Thanksgiving. I may start preparing and making purchases long before Thanksgiving and Christmas but I still hold firm that Thanksgiving dinner must be served and completed before Christmas decorations start going up.
My grandmother prepared a feast for the holidays. We always had capon and dressing, ham, sweet potato pone, macaroni and cheese, collards, dumplings, peas or butterbeans, potato salad, deviled eggs, biscuits, cornbread, all sorts of pickles, relishes and jams, orange cake, chocolate cake, red velvet cake, extremely sweet iced tea -just to name the major items I can remember seeing piled onto plates.
My grandmother always cooked a capon. When one could not be found (very rare occurance) she cooked a hen. I was probably 12 or 13 years old before I ever had turkey for Thanksgiving. To this day I prefer the capon to the turkey but they are not so easy to find. I wonder if it is a regional thing?
My grandmother baked and cooked and prepared several days in advance of the big feast. Her kitchen was a flurry of activity. The house work was completed by the daughters -they also did a lot of washing up behind her while she masterfully created her bounty with perfection.
The holiday was more than just special foods. It was about the entire family coming together. At the very minimum there would be 14 people at my grandparents table. At the most there would be 30 as we grew up and brought others to the table. No one was ever turned away. If there was food on the table guests were fed.
The adults sat at the nice dining room table. Their conversations full of laughter and constant chatter. We children sat at the table in the kitchen. If the weather were warm we would be seated at the long banister on the back porch to eat. Occassionally an adult would come out to check on us, heap seconds on our plates or refill our tea glasses.
We would strain our ears to hear what the grown up were talking about. We would make excuses to venture into the dining room. If it was something little ears did not need to hear we were told to go back out while the grown up finished their dinner. Raunchy jokes and other adult conversation was common place until things got too adventurous and my grandmother put a stop to the entire thing. She didn't put up with much off color humor.
When my mother remarried and took us away to Georgia sometimes we hosted the family for Thanksgiving. My grandfather refused to eat wild game and once my mother cooked a venison roast and passed it off as prime rib. I don't think he ever knew that the majority of beef he ate at our house was actually deer. Even then the adults sat at the big table and us children were sent to another table out of the way. I think I was 19 years old before I got my turn to sit at the grown-ups table.
My stepfather was an avid hunter. I remember clearly the years he went out and brought back a turkey for our dinner. Usually a big giant wild tom. He taught me to clean and prepare the carcass for roasting. It is a skill some may be too squeemish to learn but it is a skill I add to my list of things I can do (along with many other wild game).
In my heart and mind the holidays are associated with food and family and a overwhelming spirit of love. It is a time when differences are aside and everyone is on their best behavior and a good time is had by all.*
While it once was anticipated to go to my grandmother's house or to my mother's I have reached a point where I want to be at home and have traditions with our little family. I don't want to sit at someone else's table. I want to sit at my own. I want to create for my kids the exact same thing I had as a child. I want the spirit that my grandparnts created for us to infuse and enrich the lives of our children and some day our grandchildren.
Being so far away from everything I know as 'home' is difficult during the holidays. Someone else's table doesn't offer the sights and sounds and smells that I grew up with. The food is foreign, there is no grown-ups table and children line the seats and misbehave and refuse to eat and spill things. I don't like chaos. I want the idealism I know from my childhood. Living in this part of Virginia is truely like being a stranger in a strange land -so is sitting at someone else's table.
This year I can't travel far. My feet swell and I get carsick. We are staying home. My mother will arrive today. Although it means alot of work and planning and preparing I am so very much looking forward to sitting at our table tomorrow and eating the foods I grew up with.
I considered cooking a Carrot Souffle and Egg Bread with Honey Butter, and Creamed Corn Pudding, or Sweet Potato Pone but I think I am going to prepare something more traditional from my grandmother's kitchen this year. I prefer a little bit of a lot of different things so there will be many dishes to taste. I will be preparing half recipes so as not to have a lot of leftovers. The only leftovers we look forward to are the BEST turkey sandwiches**** you can find the day after Thanksgiving.
Where will you spend Thanksgiving? What will be on the table?
*(The bickering and fussing comes after when someone feels like they where slighted etc, etc, etc ... My sister is now the reigning queen of feeling as if she has been slighted no matter the occassion.)
**Thanksgiving ham is Honeybaked. Christmas ham is a peppered ham from Ham I Am. They are dressed up with pineapple rings and cherries and cloves and slid into the oven to heat through and cook the fruits. I cook my own ham for Easter.
***Colby loves green bean casserole and asked for it.
****Slices of leftover turkey. Fresh black pumpernickle bread. Mayonnaise. Creamed horseradish. Leftover cranberry sauce. Crisp lettuce. Salt. Pepper. It doesn't get any better than that.
*****I had chosen my wines weeks ago and picked them up this week while out shopping. I am so happy to find that when I read this article I had made very good choices. The Gewurztraminer and Beaujolais are for backup. Just in case the first two bottles go quickly.
Posted by Angie at November 23, 2005 04:42 AM
Comments
No wonder you are up so early posting this! You have stuff to COOK in a major way!
We are going to my daughter's home, and I was told to bring green beans, rolls and salad. There will be 15 of us at the table; I don't know what else we will have, but I am expecting turkey and all the trimmings. In order for us to have turkey sandwiches the next day, I have bought a small turkey breast, which I will cook on Friday.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, Angie, and enjoy your mother's visit, and making your very own traditions.
Posted by: kenju at November 23, 2005 06:58 AM
Enjoy this first Thanksgiving in your beautiful house with your lovely family. Every holiday will be different from now on, next year there will be a little boy (!!) charming the girls into sneaking him treats before dinner, after that might be the year a new OLDER boy joins the table, a nice one your daughter invited to meet the family.
This is your starter year at the new house, the one everyone will remember that you were pregnant with little ???. Years and years from now, that will be the unspoken asterick by this Thanksgiving.
Here's to making your own new traditions and memories with your family in a new land in a lovely new home. That's pretty special, but then again, so are you.
Have a great Thanksgiving!!
Posted by: Susie Sunshine at November 23, 2005 07:22 AM
have a great great Thanksgiving. reading the menu I'm now drooling and thinking about getting on a plane RIGHT NOW. wishing you many many many good things Angie. happy Thanksgiving.
Posted by: irene at November 23, 2005 07:38 AM
Happy Thanksgiving, Angie! I love the Thanksgiving memories, but here's to creating some wonderful new ones too!
Posted by: ~L. at November 23, 2005 07:54 AM
We'll be here deep frying our turkey and hoping Nana behaves herself. Your Thanksgiving reads like something out of a novel. You sure are something else, girly. I can honestly say that one of the things I am thankful for this year is meeting you. I hope your Thanksgiving is absolutely perfect.
xoxo
Posted by: MommaK at November 23, 2005 08:04 AM
Growing up Holidays were traded between my mom and her brother. If we went to my uncles for Thanksgiving Christmas that year was at our house. We always prefered the holiday at home. Even when the holiday was away my mom still cooked for us for when we came home.
We had everything and our holidays were never short of 20 people. Family from both sides, friends, etc. Now as adults Thanksgiving is spent at the inlaws but we all get together for Christmas. My sister alternates with her husbands family like we did growing up.
We celebrate with Turkey and all the fixings very similar to yours. My brothers birthday is on the 25th so every few years his birthday dinner choice is thrown in. Such as hot dogs. Ravioli's, etc
For Christmas Dinner we always have Surf & Turf, potatoes, and lots of fixings like thanksgiving!
This year I will be attending the holiday at my inlaws where some are invited some arent and all around bitch fest about eachohter. WOO frickin hoo happy thanksgiving. My mom is in Kansas my brothers and sister are all over. On Friday I will be driving to my sisters in VA and spending the weekend with her and her family! This thanksgiving is sad but I will make the best of it and know my family is with me in spirit! I will talk to everyone of them on the holiday!
So traditions are big in my family in the next few years when I am happy in my life I will take over the family traditions! But as I said that is in Time!
Posted by: kate at November 23, 2005 10:42 AM
Thanks for the great recipes. You know I love 'em!
And what a wonderful post. I love reading about others' traditions.
I hope you have a terrific turkey day!!
Posted by: lucinda at November 23, 2005 11:10 AM
This will be perfect if you remember to slide some parsnips in there in place of the rutabagas.
I suspect capon isn't popular because people don't know what it is and are afraid to show off their ignorance on the subject.
I am going to post starting tomorrow. Thanks for your kind thoughts.
Posted by: old horsetail snake at November 23, 2005 02:03 PM
We are cooking here and I love to do that. I love to have people at my house and i love to cook and entertain. One of my girls loves to cook and made the menu - turkey, gravy, mashed pot, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, rolls, greek lemon soup, fruit salad, a friend is bringing cheesecake and green salad. I must be forgetting something. I have't cooked anything yet but we'll make the pies tonight.
Posted by: countrymom at November 23, 2005 03:39 PM
Great post, Angie. I'm making your carrot souffle on a trial basis tonight. :-) The very best Pinot Gris comes from Hoss's backyard in the Willamette valley- Elk Cove Pinot Gris. That is what we will be serving as we drink a toast to him.
I want to wish you the very best Thanksgiving, Angie and to let you know that I am thankful to have you as a neighbor in this land of blogs.
Relax, enjoy!
Posted by: Vicki at November 23, 2005 05:28 PM
THank you for my thanksgiving card. You made my day! Have a great thanksgiving!
Kate
Posted by: kate at November 24, 2005 11:40 AM
Hi Angie - Happy Thanksgiving! Can't wait to hear how it all went. And I know you must be getting started with the Christmas decorations by now. This has been an amazing year for you, hasn't it? I loved Ms.Sunshine's comment above - thinking about the Thanksgiving dinners still to come. Love you, Angie. You are such a special person.
Posted by: MistressMary at November 26, 2005 03:32 PM
I knew you'd have a fabulous feast planned!! Hope it all turned out well and many more traditions were set and memories made. I'm Thankful for you!
Posted by: J&J's Mom at November 27, 2005 07:07 PM