So, the turkey has been prepped and a can of cranberry sauce retrieved from far back in the pantry. In lieu of family, we’re hosting two neighbors, who will be fringing a sweet potato dish and green bean casserole. Tomorrow we shall be giving thanks for the fact we’re not stuck in traffic or stranded at a distant airport. My wife will be especially grateful that Thanksgiving no longer entails driving over Soldier Summit in a raging blizzard in order to get to my parents’ place.
Were my parents still alive, I’d still be making the trip, most likely by myself because having grown up on the far side of the Wasatch Plateau, I’m accustomed to treacherous driving conditions. Hell, I used to sing a happy song as I swerved and skidded along.
“Over the guardrail and off a cliff, to grandmother’s house we go…”
Highlight of the drive was emerging from the narrow tunnel at Castle Gate to behold a wonderland of soot-blackened mine tipples, coal pyramids, power substations, aerial trams, railroad switch yards, gaudily lit bars and dimly lit brothel hotels–fixtures of my bituminescent boyhood.
Ours was a modest home, but never untidy. Mom took pride in being a fastidious homemaker and was a fixture in a kitchen that was always crowded to the point of standing room only. I greatly enjoyed watching her cook, which in those days was exclusively women’s work. Nonetheless, she taught me how to make a white sauce.
As for Dad, his job was carving the turkey. In the photo below, he is wielding a newfangled electric knife. Sadly, he never showed me how to carve a turkey, so I will most likely make a mess of it tomorrow. Perhaps I can conceal my butchery with white sauce?
While I’m dismantling the turkey, Anne will be plating her signature red cabbage, following a recipe her mother brought from the old country. Like it or not, we must have red cabbage at Thanksgiving, because it’s the dish that brings back memories of her girlhood holidays, same as the scent of my mother’s freshly baked “out of this world” rolls transports me to mine.