Thanksgiving. My most favorite holiday. Even though most holidays are spent with family, this holiday reminds me most of family and home. We never really did the traditional Thanksgiving dinner when I was growing up: every year when Thanksgiving rolled around my mom would ask, "Do we have to have turkey this year?" Though she asked, it didn't really matter what we said since she would be the one cooking (or not cooking) it anyway. We must have had turkey at least a few times growing up, but not always, and definitely not with stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, etc etc. For a very long time, we only ate mashed potatoes made from those instant flakes. I really thought this was how one made mashed potatoes. One year I remember insisting that we have cranberry sauce, so we bought a can and had a dish of can-shaped cranberry sauce, which only I ate. I have to admit I saw something similar on the Simpsons, so I figured this was normal. Maybe this is what happens when your parents are immigrants, or maybe I just didn't pay very good attention. Looking back, I guess these experiences make the holiday special in its own way, but mostly they're just a little sad - particularly from a gastronomic point of view. After I graduated from college and started working, I started paying attention.
Working at a school, I was kind of inundated with all things Thanksgiving. My colleagues and students all talked about the Thanksgiving meals they were looking forward to and in particular the special pies or stuffing that so-and-so was going to make, and seeing relatives, etc. I also seemed to walk by a lot of stores that sold Thanksgiving related food and kitchen items. So that year, instead of trying to convince my mom to roast a turkey, it dawned on me that I could roast one myself! I was an adult now, right? And I could make stuffing and cranberry sauce that wasn't shaped in a can. Maybe even mash some real potatoes. So I got to researching, discovered brining, found a great stuffing recipe, realized that it was pretty easy to make cranberry sauce from actual cranberries, and even got a great pie crust recipe from a colleague. I was ready to go after a quick visit to Williams Sonoma.
I decided to brine the turkey, but didn't really think to get a brining bag, so my mom dug out the biggest pot we had, and we put the turkey in there. But there was no room in the fridge. Fortunately, it was a pretty cold Thanksgiving that year, so we ended up putting the pot of turkey outside, in the car. My sister made the mashed potatoes, I experimented with a cornbread sausage stuffing recipe, and it was a success! I even took notes on what worked and what didn't work to look back on the following year. It was a lot of work, it was the best Thanksgiving meal I'd ever had, not only because it really did taste good, but because I had actually roasted a turkey! At 22 years old, I hadn't really done that much cooking beyond instant noodles and pasta, so it was kind of a big deal. But I didn't make it all by myself, and that was what made it special. Not only were we getting together as a family, we were putting together a meal as a family. Now that I've moved to Virginia, I usually have Thanksgiving here, and though it's changed a bit, it's still cooked and shared by family and friends. And I always think of those first Thanksgiving meals I made in NY.
No comments:
Post a Comment