Everything But The Turkey

 

Thanksgiving comes around and suddenly everyone is grateful for one thing or another.  The list usually entails friends, sometimes family, and occasionally health.  Yes, I have much to say on that particular ordering of things people are generally grateful for. Half of me is annoyed by the sudden surge of grateful posts on Facebook feeling like so much of it is perfunctory BS and the other half of me is genuinely touched.

Years ago, while living in San Francisco, I was listening to my car radio on my way home and the theme on the talk show I happened to be listening to was, “The Worst Thanksgiving You Ever Had.”  Bitter and alone, go ahead caller!  One guy called in and won hands down with the poignant summary that his worst Thanksgiving was working the night shift by himself at a mortuary eating cold cheeseburgers with cadavers. 

I may have never had a Thanksgiving quite like that, but I have suffered through some family/friend gatherings that left me wondering, “Who are these people that proclaim they *love* me and how do I get away from them gracefully?”

I found the answer by running off to Costa Rica for a couple of years and discovered that an ahi tuna steak and margarita in 85 degree humid weather worked just fine in lieu of turkey and toxic side-dishes served by loved ones amidst a surface layer of gaiety and laughter.  If you ever find yourself in a situation where Thanksgiving isn’t feeling as joyous as it should, one recommendation is to buy yourself a plane ticket and get out of dodge. 

After running away for a couple of years to greener pastures (and yes, they were in fact greener), I came back to the typical family/friend gathering that became more friendly, palatable (which had nothing to do with food as my mom is an amazing cook), and even actually more consistently fun.

This year was different.  My mother, the usual celebrated Thanksgiving chef, went off to Brasil to visit my sister and my other sister declared Thanksgiving at her house.  I received a couple of other invitations from some amazing people I am lucky enough to call friends, but in the end I decided to do Thanksgiving alone this year. To misappropriate a relationship quote I rather like, and in summation of years prior with much left to be desired, “It’s better to be alone than to wish you were.”

Enter Thanksgiving 2013 – Everything But The Turkey. (All puns intended, lathered up with gravy.)

When people innocently and casually inquired about my Thanksgiving Day plans and I told them I would be alone, I sensed this undercurrent of restrained pity.  It was so understandable and so incredibly off-base.

In true, last minute fashion, I set out on Thursday morning to shop for all I would need for my feast. I wanted the best of both worlds; the stuffing and cranberry sauce I love that generally only comes around once a year, and crab…..crab dipped in obscene amounts of pure, melted butter. 

I did the shopping.  I did the cooking.  I couldn’t find the incomplete recipe I had received from my mother at one point because most of my stuff is still in storage.  Being the 3^rd girl in a family of 4 with the last being the only boy of the family, I miss out on some things, but I work around this the best I can. 

I decided to invite my dead grandmother for dinner – not in a creepy mortuary sense but just in a spiritual sense.  It was her stuffing recipe after all, and I needed guidance to fill the holes of an incomplete recipe made more daunting by my incomplete memory.  I chopped.  I sautéed.  I opened champagne. I played music and danced in the kitchen singing and laughing.  I googled my stuffing confusion.  I asked for Violet’s guidance.  I always felt a connection with her even after her passing, perhaps because she seemed to be misunderstood often, which is something I can relate to. 

Veering from the shaky memory I had of the original recipe, I hoped that the adjustments I made were with her blessing. I actually discovered a couple of alterations I liked, and I began to be – Yes! - thankful for the fact that I sometimes get left behind with little things, like the complete, non-spur-of-the-moment, detailed recipe of my grandmother’s stuffing.  I’ll find my own way.

Alis volat propriis.

When I came close to finishing dinner I stopped abruptly. I refused to go any further until I sat down and finished writing a piece for a travel writing contest due by midnight on Thanksgiving.  Most of the food was complete but I would not finish those minor last final steps until I sat down to write.  It was mildly torturous. I never intend on waiting until the last minute. The first time I didn’t even see the contest until a couple of days before it was due.  The 2^nd and 3^rd contests I convinced myself that I wouldn’t enter for one reason or another, then a day or two before a change of heart has me writing in a frenzy of panic and determination. 

I had the most magnificent spread of Thanksgiving goodness laid before me, taunting me, tempting me, and goading me onward.  I completed the travel writi­ng piece with one hour to spare.

I gorged on the food in a state of euphoria and a high most people would pay good money to achieve.  I get that kind of stuff naturally.  Don’t get jealous – it comes with a heavy price as most good things do.  Nothing is for free.  You better believe though that when it comes around I indulge in it with complete abandonment and delight.

There was crab with miniature vats of melted butter, enough stuffing for a large family, cranberry sauce, and bread with yup – more butter!  There was J sparkling wine and a Rodney Strong Pinot Noir.  I even had a salad of spring greens, blue cheese, and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds to counter the obscene amounts of butter I ingested. 

Every moment was exquisite.  Every mouthful was divine.  Every moment was everything I ever wanted out of a Thanksgiving by myself and more.  I was in a state of pure love and delight.
 

 

A couple of days later my brother came to visit briefly to take the last of the persimmons and tried my stuffing.   He pushed forkfuls into his mouth while critiquing it telling me what wasn’t right about it after I told him my struggles with recalling the recipe by memory having only seen it once briefly.  My family often wonders why I am so difficult. They simply cannot comprehend why I am the way I am.  Some know w­­hy, and I’d like to think my grandmother understands also.  And I think she forgives the 2/3 of potato and celery I added to her stuffing, and a few of the things I missed or screwed up. 

Returning to work, some inquired how my Thanksgiving was.  When I said “Awesome”, I knew that over-used word could not capture what I meant.  I explained it to one person outside of work who initially felt “sorry for me “, then ended with wanting an invitation for next year.  I showed another person a photograph and the pity that originally caked their voice dissipated.  The pity and concern were gone.  All that was left was a girl, without a proper stuffing recipe, without a proper Thanksgiving, living it up on her own and feeling like aside from whatever my brother found wrong with my stuffing, I actually did Thanksgiving completely right this year much like the Thanksgiving I had in Costa Rica with the ahi tuna steak and margarita.  I never felt better - or more thankful for my own ability to create a good time for myself, enjoy my own company, and transform an evening that some might dread into something fun, passionate, playful, productive, and peaceful. 

I am indeed thankful for many of the same things others are.  I am thankful for my friends but prefer to tell them that on some other day that isn’t named “Thanksgiving”.  This Thanksgiving, I was thankful for myself, my passion, and what I create from my own heart and with my own hands.  I was thankful for stepping outside my comfort zone with cooking, for working on myself, cultivating what is inside of me, and allowing it all to pour forth as freely as the J sparkling wine.  After all, it is that which we share with our friends and families – ourselves – and the more we develop that, the more pure scrumptious goodness we have to share with those we are thankful for in our lives and those who are thankful for us.

If all else fails, buy a ticket to Costa Rica and have the ahi tuna and a margarita.