Thanksgiving

Our family will pause during Thanksgiving dinner and each of us will take a moment to mention what we're most thankful for in the past year.  Other than that, I have to confess our holiday is all about food. 

The eating begins the moment I arrive at my sister's house.  I put down my suitcase and head for the kitchen where a loaf of fresh pumpkin bread is waiting.  I'll eat my first slice of many before I even take off my coat.   

We have turkey of course, but pumpkin bread is the official food for the week of our family's Thanksgiving.  I've already done the math – and I'm worried whether the 14 loaves Carla already made will be enough for the 14 people in the family  before fights break out over the crumbs. 

Pudgy, glossy and scarlet red. There they were, bright and fresh, in plastic bags piled one on top of the other in the produce department of the grocery store, reminding me the holiday season is quickly approaching.

Images of Thanksgivings of the past appeared in my mind. I pictured our family gathered around the dinner table, nearly finished with a big turkey meal, when suddenly my mom yelled out, “The cranberries!” The roll of jellied cranberries pushed from a can (I know, I can hardly believe it, either) into a long, narrow crystal bowl had been forgotten in the refrigerator.

Those who don’t care for cranberry sauce may be familiar with only the canned varieties. Nothing beats the flavor of firm, fresh, deep red cranberries that have been cooked with water and sugar until they pop, pop, pop.

These little red jewels are so lovable. They are easy to store, they’re versatile and they’re so good for you. Refrigerated in their original packaging, they can last as long as two months. Put the original bag inside of a freezer bag, and you can store them frozen for about nine months. This is good news for all cranberry lovers, since the season is short.

It was an angela thing and it all started when she sent me a link along with a two word email that said “interesting, huh?”. 

My god, so much has happened since then.

The birds have long been roasted to a golden hue and feasted upon while the carcass has been turned into a rich stock tucked away in my freezer.  But at the risk of whatever reputation I might have it is both my pleasure and responsibility to present to you the saga of an inside-out very misunderstood version of the much more familiar and accepted turducken - the ducurkey.  Or as we like to call it, The Space Shuttle Turkey.

Let me continue on by reminding you that I’m an excitable kinda gal.  It doesn’t take much to get me up and on a bandwagon and so I was all about the space shuttle turkey.  Because why can’t the Thanksgiving turkey have a little fun?

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“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NO TURKEY???” I have never sent an angrier text in my life. Ping!

“We are having my famous Native American pumpkin chili,” Mother just texted back. “You liked it last year.”

No. I did not like it last year!   In fact, I did not like her famous Native American pumpkin chili soooo much last year that I had politely excused myself from the table, raced into the kitchen under the guise of needing a glass of water, and promptly shoveled the chili into the family dog’s bowl. If I recall correctly, even the family dog, who eats her own poop, wanted nothing to do with Mother’s famous Native American pumpkin chili. She wanted turkey.

“But it won’t be Thanksgiving w/o turkey!” I am texting back to my mom now with trembling hands.

Ping! Snotty response? “Check your history. Turkey has very little to do with the “First Thanksgiving.”