Thursday, November 25. The Best Thanksgiving. I was up shortly after the sun rose behind clouds. I took it on faith that my outlook would improve quickly once I got into my well-practiced Thanksgiving routine. This is the sixteenth year we have held the main celebration for Mary Ann's and my extended families. Even though the task wears us out and inevitably causes mutual sniping in late morning, all four of us agree that it's our favorite holiday, worth all the effort.
It helped having Jude in the house. I am always kept from going to bed at a proper time by the cooling requirements of the cheesecake. But even after a week, Jude is on L.A. time, and he said he'd surely still be awake at two a.m. to put the cheesecake into the refrigerator.
That left me free to get right into the process of firing up the grill and cutting the sugar cane stalks Elliott Lanaux brought me a few days ago into eight-inch pieces. I have plenty enough to keep the smoke billowing for hours.
Next, de-brining the turkey. It's a bigger bird than usual--fourteen and a half pounds, as opposed to our usual twelve. But I'm only cooking one this year, not two. I stuffed the cavity with oranges, celery, onions, and a length of fresh rosemary. A vine-like fern has grown over our rosemary bush, and when I yanked it off I got a surprise. A black snake of significant size was right under the fern, and raced deeper into the bush. Was this the one that the cat Twinnery caught yesterday? Or the one that followed me around while I cut the grass a month ago? He's frightening but harmless. A welcome resident of these woods, as far as I'm concerned.
The turkey was in the oven at a quarter after seven. Next victim: the ham. I cut slits in the classic criss-cross pattern and let them drink in the root beer glaze I made last night. Then I patted the brown sugar and dry mustard coating into place. (Note to me: this used up the last of the dry mustard.) It entered the bottom oven at a quarter to eight. The main protein sources in this dinner were now in process.
Next: pecan pie. I had never made my own crust for this before. I probably never will again. Despite taking great care, the crust would not keep body and soul together. It fell apart as I tried to roll it out. I wound up pushing the biggest pieces with my fingers into the bottom of my Official Pecan Pie Baking Dish. It has a recipe for the pie in the bottom. It recommends a prepared pie dough.
Also on my docket: sweet potato-Bourbon biscuits. These came out great, even though the idea of mixing sweet potatoes and biscuit dough seemed iffy to me. (I am a master of biscuit dough.)
Mary Ann was up by now, working on her byzantine assortment of side dishes and appetizers. The most time-consuming were beggar's purses of mushrooms and goat cheese. Last year she went crazy with the sweet potatoes by coating big chunks of them with a curry-flavored seasoning blend instead of the standard sweet stuff. Everybody loved it--especially her. But she didn't remember how she made it. Tom to the rescue, with fingers crossed that he doesn't overdo it. (I didn't, and it was a hit again, although a lot of people wondered why a yellow residue remained on the plate. Cut back on the turmeric next time.)
MA was trying to talk me out of mashed potatoes. I knew that battle would be over as soon as Mary Leigh made the scene, which she did at nine--when the Macy's parade comes on television. We were sad to have missed the parade last year, what with the end of analog television broadcast signals. (We have AT&T U-Verse now.) Mary Leigh made it clear that mashed potatoes were essential. But Mary Ann got her way, sort of. She wouldn't let me use my chafing dishes, saying they looked like they came from a cheesy buffet. Which they do. But they keep the mashed potatoes and a few other things like that warm. And nobody likes cold mashed potatoes.
While the girls alternated between cooking and watching the parade, I shifted to another Thanksgiving tradition. For the past decade or more, I've hosted a two-hour Thanksgiving morning show on WWL Radio. I set up the microphone on the kitchen counter, and talk to people in radioland about how their cooking is coming along while I continue doing my own. This is a gig I'd like to keep the rest of my life.
The stress level remained so low that even the kids remarked on it. It spiked at around one, when it looked as if we would be nowhere near ready by the time the guests arrived. But suddenly at one-thirty, everything essential was complete. A few dishes that nobody would miss remained unmade. We had the ingredients for gravy but no gravy, for example. No stuffing, either. I never liked turkey gravy or stuffing, anyway.
Mary Leigh had a good rhythm going making puff-pastry garlic bread sticks, satsuma sorbet, and homemade ice cream sandwiches. Jude was no help at all. Typical young man. He'll get it later in life, though.
My little sister Lynn Fleetwood and a friend of hers named Mike arrived at the same time as Mary Ann's big sister Sylvia. Sylvia's son Gary was also here, unloading a four-wheel ATV onto our lawn. He would spend most of the day giving rides on it.
Then everybody was here. Twenty-two people in all. I carved away at the turkey and the ham, and soon the former was demolished. All of it went except one leg. Less than half the ham remained after the first attack by the guests.
The Saints game came on. The attendees divided into two groups. About a dozen were in the living room, watching the Saints tough out a squeaker.
On the deck were the late teens and early twenties, of which Mary Ann's family has many. All of them were little kids at the time of our first Thanksgiving here, and share many memories and traditions. It was great to watch them behave as they do when they're off the adults' radar. Quite a party out there, happy talk about stuff we wouldn't understand, lots of laughter and incomprehensible games.
Indoors, wine flowed. A Gewurztraminer, a Chassagne Montrachet, two California Pinot Noirs, two Georges Du Boeuf Beaujolais Nouveaus (brought by Sylvia, keeping up a tradition started by her husband Lloyd, who died this year), a Chardonnay, and an Australian Shiraz.
After dark, I was joined in the kitchen by a few of the older members of the next generation in sampling all the open bottles. My nephew Patrick, who is twenty-four, wanted to know about my lever-action corkscrew. I told him that it was great for opening anything except an older bottle whose cork might be too soft to withstand strong pulling without crumbling.
"What do you do then?" he asked. I showed him my ah-so--that gadget with two springy prongs that go down both sides of the cork, unsticking it from the bottleneck and grasping it from the sides for the pull. He found this and the wines we were drinking interesting. He thereby passed a test. He is the kind of person I'd open an especially good wine for.
As it happened, I had a tragic bottle that had been waiting for just such a moment as this. A 1981 Edna Valley Pinot Noir, a case of which was forgotten in the back of a closet until it was past its prime. I had one bottle left. It was iffy, at best, with evidence of cork leakage and a good two inches of ullage. But it would demonstrate the abilities of the ah-so method. Even the ah-so made a mess of this cork, though.
I poured. The wine was cloudy, having not stood up in advance. It was well over the hill, but better than I expected, with a particularly interesting bouquet. Patrick was intrigued by the whole process. Gary thought less of it. Lynn liked it okay, but the other girls who tried it were displeased. I told Patrick that from now on, he and I would open an old bottle every Thanksgiving.
The game went on until well after dark, and kept anyone from leaving. They relaxed and kept picking at the massive overload of food, going through the desserts, drinking café au lait and keeping the conversations going. It wasn't until nine that the mass exodus occurred. Usually only one family stayed this late, but they weren't here this year. (Maybe that explains it!)(Joke.)
"I think that was the best Thanksgiving ever," Mary Ann said.
"I thought so too," said Mary Leigh. "That was really fun."
"Sure was," I said. "I am beat."
Jude was on the phone with his people in L.A.
