You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
ANOTHER FORM TO FILL OUT
(Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy...)
A third factor is that my father did not reliably make it home for Thanksgiving. He often was tagged (or volunteered, I can't say) to be part of the crew who worked out in the field through that week. Mama would be depressed and our dinner was perfunctory.
Another reason I learned about as an adult was the general antipathy toward Thanksgiving in white Southern culture as a Yankee holiday shoved down our throats during the Civil War. Most of the older folks in my family were ambivalent about it -- as children, they had grown up around folks who had once been Confederates. The actual first feast of European colonists on American soil had been prepared by our Southern forebears long before the Pilgrim mythologized version.
Once I became politicized, it was also a holiday whose lies were unsupportable by me, and I took comfort in protesting Thanksgiving, as I boycotted the Fourth of July. But that sort of choice is much easier when it actually is a choice: When you still have family, when you have other community to turn to, and when a shared meal is not a rare luxury.
This morning, the Meals on Wheels volunteer left me a form to sign up for a home-delivered Thanksgiving meal on that Thursday. Deadline is November 17th. I must guarantee I will be home to receive the meal.
Well, no problem there. I'll be here and ready to eat. But I am having a definite emotional reaction toward the idea of signing up for it.
The shame of charity, of being the kind of person given institutional kindness by strangers. (How did I get here? For so many years, I was on the other end, one of the givers.)
The idea of eating a generic, mass-prepared meal with no choice over the menu. I mean, I don't much like pumpkin pie and almost any other kind of pie is preferable to me. Plus the love of dishes prepared by folks you know doesn't usually come in the MoW wrapping.
The fact that I will still eat alone, on paper plates with plastic utensils. There will be no leftovers for late night sandwiches or creative assemblages by others under the roof with me. This is not actually new, I haven't had a shared Thanksgiving meal in at least five years, once I stopped making tremendous efforts to make it happen, only to have friends announce they were leaving town to visit family or "just needed to get away" for that weekend. No matter how close you are to folks, it feels virtually impossible to ask them not to leave you. And, even then, I did lay myself bare to the mother of one family I was supposedly enveloped among, only to have her make plans without me and simply keep it secret until the last minute, then blame me for the guilt she felt. She needn't have bothered, I blame myself first most of the time anyhow.
I do have visitors who will be here that week of Thanksgiving, one or maybe two sets of travelers from the Northeast whom I very much want to see, and I thought that had more than covered the holiday for me. Until I got the form and had to think about the day in particular.
It's a free meal, and I don't have the room to say no to that. My alternative will be to have something microwavable I have arranged for in advance, possibly more to my liking (pot roast? lemon pie?) but still eaten solo. And, I have to admit, the possible sympathy/pity of the volunteer bringing my meal on that day jerks me up short. I hear my mama's voice in my head: "We don't let others feel sorry for us." Her reason for rejecting what little assistance might have come our way during my childhood.
She was wrong, I know, but the residue is packed in around my heart.
So, I'm simply sharing what I'm struggling with. I'll take it to my counselor, perhaps write my way through it (in my books, nobody cooks or eats alone unless they choose it), and find the choice which offers the most chance for redemption. I bet there are some of you out there facing similar questions.
Lemon chess pie, that's what I would ask Mama to make. And a cherry pie for Bill, of course. With her sage cornbread dressing alongside the roast and new potatoes. Sweet tea, fresh green beans, and jellied cranberry with the can ridges still visible. Bill would say grace, roaring "Good spuds, good meat, good god let's eat!" and making his predictable jokes about sweet 'taters as "poot roots". Then some stupid sports thing on TV while I fell asleep on the couch, face pressed into the cushions, remembering how Mama always said "Wonder what the po' folks are eating today."
Thursday, November 26, 2009
THANKSGIVING JOURNAL
(Buttermilk pie)it was a tough night because i was thirsty and i'd run out of all bottled water, juice, or even soda near my bed. bad planning. i'd been up and around the house earlier, pushed to my limit, and the idea of repeating a foray to hydrate seemed too much to bear. (try to get upright with major joint issues, wearing an abdominal binder and not using any abdominal muscles -- it's an olympic event.) i tried telling myself it was about self-love, but even that didn't work.
dry-mouthed, i began watching a pbs docu about the mamas and the papas, and got engrossed in spite of myself. i was struck by michelle philllips' mature appraisal of her strengths and weaknesses, and her unstinting affection for mama cass -- she called her "huge" with a humor that had no tinge of fat phobia. she deftly put paid to the "choked on a sandwich" canard about cass, and outlined the reasons why cass would have gone on to be a superstar had she lived.
(Mama Cass, Mary Travers and Joni Mitchell singing "I Shall Be Released", 1969)
i intended to watch the independent lens docu which followed called objectified, about design, made by the folks who made the excellent "helvetica", but I fell asleep. when i woke up four hours later, i had the will finally to get up and bring liquid back to my nest. i took my hydrocodone for the day, recklessly not saving it for a pain crisis -- i think it will be okay today. i plan to have human conversation, excellent food, and do some writing. it's a day off.
i couldn't eat my threadgill's chicken-fried steak last night; my capacity and appetite are very diminished, and i begin meals with what my body is most craving, which last night was tomatoes and cornbread. this morning after i was hydrated, the cold meat sounded appealing, so i had it for breakfast while watching the start of the parades on TV. to my surprise, dinah offered to share the meal with me. she typically is skeptical about humin fud but she remarked that any dish containing the names of TWO meats was worth a look-see. she approved. still couldn't finish it so will save the rest, although with the other food here, something will probably get thrown out before being eaten. i do have a slice of buttermilk pie (my all-time favorite) which WILL be eaten.
quick question: is anybody else around my age who DOESN'T have joint problems starting to have serious difficulty loosening bottle caps and jar lids?
aside from cass's soaring voice, what else is intruding into my thoughts is the PBS episode of "secrets of the dead" yesterday about the terrorist attacks on mumbai a year ago. i had mixed thoughts about trying to watch it, but now i can't recommend it highly enough. two different set of survivors, married couples, one of whom (an elderly turkish pair) went through unspeakable slaughter which splattered all around them, gave riveting firsthand accounts which ended, eventually, with a version of compassion for the ignorant, terrified young men who were controlled by a remote terror network into becoming tools of murder and suicide. it was so damned good to hear a detailed, NON-American take on terrorism. catch it if you can, and be ready to grieve in a productive manner.
i'm experimenting with a shareware program that will cartoonize and/or make line drawings of photographs. the one i'm trying for free, photo to cartoon, is adequate but i suspect i could eventually make use of a lot more bells and whistles. anyone out there have recommendations to make? i'm not a skilled graphics person and i use PCs, so those are limits to keep in mind. also it must be either free or low-cost; i'll definitely use it for blogging but i can't justify high expenditure for this, all the same.
okay, it's 10 a.m., i'm going to eat the pie now. my daughter worked for amy's ice cream when she was a teenager, and their employee T-shirt was the first place i saw the adage "life is uncertain. eat dessert first."
i'm past the point of dying young and leaving a beautiful memory. i'm planning for happy, meaningful old age instead. that's new, folk. time to turn off this idiotic parade, eat pie, and untie my brain.
[Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog]
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
JEB BARTLET AND C.J. AT THANKSGIVING
Every year since Chimpy McFlightsuit has taken office, I've avoided watching him speak, no matter what national circumstances we find ourselves in: Too painful. This is particularly true for events like the Easter Egg Roll (a.k.a. keep the kids of dykes and faggots off the White House lawn) or meeting horrified foreign dignitaries who must wonder how low we have fallen as a nation. But they flash by on the screen as I hit mute. And this year, our local news anchor had a knowing grin on his face when he began "In what may perhaps be his last official pardon, President Bush..." as footage of two befuddled creatures rolled, one of them in a suit.
Once again, my longing for Josiah Bartlet to be REAL stirred my viscera. And I was reminded of my favorite West Wing character, Claudia Jean Cregg, when she had to handle turkey pardoning in the Bartlet White House. For your early holiday pleasure, below are three videos from an era when we still believed in a Presidency that was not tainted by fanaticism and greed (restoration underway, giving thanks early I am):
C.J. meets the turkeys to be pardoned (poor quality video)
C.J. must ask the President to pardon another turkey
President Bartlet on the Butterball hotline
Sunday, November 23, 2008
I YAM WHAT I YAM
A few years ago, I watched an episode of America's Test Kitchen that gave me a recipe for cooking sweet potatoes which I've used ever since, producing the kind of dish people rave about. I'm sharing it on here. I won't be giving exact quantities because it's the technique that works, not amounts. This will NOT involve marshmallows, by the way, if you're from that school of sweet potato eaterology.
Note: Most of what we call "yams" in this country are another variety of sweet potato. Real yams don't show up in our supermarkets and are not as nutritious as sweet potatoes anyhow.
Use at least one large sweet potato per person who will be eating. Peel or don't peel, depending on your preference. Cut them into thin uniform slices. Place them in a saucepan with a lid, along with at least half an inch of half and half, cream, or milk to cover the bottom of the pan. Add butter to your preference. (Note: I always use unsalted butter, not just for baking -- control of salt is important to good cooking.) Turn the heat on low and allow them to simmer for a long time -- the sweet potatoes will release their liquid, and that combined with the milk will steam them, but they'll take in flavor as they lose moisture. If you are the type to add sweetening, add it now -- brown sugar, maple syrup or molasses. Plus a dash of vanilla, if you want. After at least half an hour, check the potatoes, and add more liquid to keep the bottom of the pan covered. When they are completely tender, add salt, pepper and other spices to taste, plus more butter if you want. Mash them. They'll be unbelievably creamy, full of flavor, and have retained all their excellent nutrition. You can make these in advance and refrigerate them.
A trick I learned from cooking with Julia and Jacques is to keep mashed potatoes (and sweet potatoes) tasting "fresh" and non-oxidized when made in advance of a meal, hold back a little on the milk or cream you add when you mash them. Spread them in a deep bowl and pour a thin layer of milk on the top, enough to cover all the exposed potatoes. Cover and refrigerate up to a day in advance. When it's time to serve, mash the milk back into the potatoes and warm them in the microwave. You'll be surprised at the retention of flavor.
One year my partner and I hosted a potluck Thanksgiving where we demanded that our guests bring dishes using only foods native to the New World. Turkey, pumpkin, cranberries and corn were easy choices. However, grains, eggs and milk necessary for some dishes proved problematic. We bought a few Native American cookbooks and spent several days experimenting. We discovered that filberts ground into meal and then boiled produced a nutty "cream" that was heavenly when used in place of milk. We allowed wild rice, sunflower and corn oil, manioc flour, and duck eggs (the latter was stretching it a bit). The resultant menu was staggeringly good. It's impossible to imagine world cuisine without maize, tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate, and the wide variety of beans and spices which have fed the globe for centuries now. Here's a list of crops given to the rest of the world by the Americas.
Feel free to use this thread to share tried-and-true Thanksgiving recipes, your planned menu, etc. Are you of the stuffing-in-the-bird school or stuffing in a separate pan? Do you brine your turkey? Here's my planned line-up: Brisket (much preferred by me to turkey), sweet potatoes as above, cornbread stuffing outside the bird with hazelnuts and blueberries, whole-wheat rolls, green bean casserole, spinach, and peach cobbler (I prefer pumpkin as a vegetable).
(Cross-posted at Group News Blog.)
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