AND YET ANOTHER ATYPICAL THANKSGIVING
November 25, 1982
I should have sensed a foreboding: The preparations began on Tuesday with a trip to the grocery store to buy turkey gizzards, livers, necks, backs and a leg to prepare my stock for the gravy. The pieces were plunged into a large pot of water to which had been added onions, carrots, celery, and herbs. The entire mélange was left to simmer for hours. After allowing ample time for cooling, the pot still needed to be strained. Placing a giant colander in the sink, I proceeded to pour the entire contents into the sieve.
What ensued was a terrifying gurgling sound and only too late did I realize that I had forgotten to put a receptacle underneath the colander to receive the thick, rich broth. My future gravy slowly slithered down the drain. Discouraged, for this meant there would have to be a last minute attempt to make gravy on Thursday–minutes before the four of us would assemble around our bounty-laden bar.
* * *
I must say, Thanksgiving has always been an unusual holiday for my family. My father’s birthday often fell on that day as did my parent’s anniversary, for he was born on November 26, 1904, and they eloped on November 25th, 1925.
The years of my dad’s alcoholism, which although sometimes questionable as to whether he could maneuver his way to the table, was balanced out quite nicely by the fragrance and deliciousness of the mincemeat pie: For the preceding 365 days, my mother kept a secret stash in the recesses of a high cupboard—a whiskey bottle in which she poured the dribs and drabs of my dad’s leftover alcoholic endeavors—the elixir to be mixed into the most scrumptious pie ever drooled over by drunken fools and teetotalers alike!
One year, my mom climbed the step stool to that overhead cupboard to retrieve the Noritake covered bowl which would be the recipient of her famed mashed potato recipe—only to discover that it held moldy taters from the previous Thanksgiving.
And so it seemed, today was guaranteed to carry on our family’s tradition of unpredictability.
* * *
It was the first Thanksgiving my husband Tom and I would celebrate in our new/old house: We had always wanted to live on a lake and when a local builder’s personal home went on the block, we scooped it up. Although it was almost twenty years old, there were plenty of amenities: a steam/sauna room, an outdoor fire alarm system which sounded exactly like a shrill drill at the local fire station, and an unusual oven. Not only did this stove top have six burners, but four of them were electric, while the other two were gas. Those two were the middle burners and the unique part about them was that when not in use, a special wooden cutting board rested there, which made quite a convenient place upon which to rest hot dishes.
Please keep in mind these three words: sauna, cutting board, alarm–for they are pertinent to my story:
Thanksgiving morning. The sky is blue, the air is crisp and the stove top is adorned with the large bowl of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, and my version of mother’s inebriated mincemeat pie—all ready to slip into the oven for a last minute warm-up—the same oven where the covered turkey-hen with the chestnut and giblet stuffing was now broadcasting her aromatic presence. Still, because of the disastrous loss of stock two days prior, I would be left with the dreadful task of making the last minute gravy.
Dear, sweet 90-year old Aunt Marie, the only remaining member of my mother’s family, had been invited to spend the holiday with us. She was now in a nursing home and in the waning years of her life. When she walked, she emitted little farts, but we just winked and nodded at each other, knowing that as my aunt was hard of hearing and had nearly lost her sense of smell, she was none the wiser. Megan, our nineteen-year old daughter was home from college for the long weekend, and she, my aunt, Tom and I would be the four gathered for the feast.
Tom was scheduled to leave at 2:00 to fetch Aunt Marie, but before he left, he heated a cup of coffee to take with him for the journey. I was in the lower level of the house setting the table around the large circular bar, and Megan lounged in the sauna which was off the bar area.
Suddenly, I became aware of a smoky smell. Dashing up the circular staircase to the kitchen–there was the large cutting board in flames. Remembering something about putting flour on a fire, I ran to the pantry, grabbed the flour and threw it onto the cutting board, where the white mess covered the nearby mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and mincemeat pie, but accomplished little in the way of extinguishing the blaze.
Simultaneously, I could hear the outdoor fire alarm transmitting clanging staccato blasts throughout the neighborhood. Megan came running up the stairs clad in nothing but a towel which she promptly removed and began thwacking at the fire, which of course only fanned the flames but pretty much demolished what was left of the potatoes and pie!
Now I could hear the sirens. Within seconds firemen were swarming the house, and naked Megan whipped that towel around her mere seconds before they stormed the door.
* * *
The incendiary misfeasance was doused, the amused firemen left, and the flour eventually drifted and settled. The cause of the emergency? When Tom heated his coffee on the stove, instead of turning off the electric burner under the coffee pot, he accidentally turned on the gas burner under the cutting board!
An embarrassed Megan frantically dressed, I opted for a hell of a stiff drink–screw the gravy, and Tom returned with the farting Aunt Marie, who informed us as we eventually sat down to the smashed and mashed floured potatoes and the overdone fowl with its dried-out dressing, “No turkey for me please—gives me gas”.
Jan Chapman
A Thanksgiving Reminiscence, 1982
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