My fingers are stained brown, and my fingertips are sore. My nails are getting torn up. And I'm starting to wonder whether I would have been a disappointment to my grandfather. It has taken me all night to crack and shell two cups' worth of pecans. My grandfather excelled at this activity. I did not inherit his pecan-shelling dexterity. I would have liked to get mostly intact halves, so that my pie for tomorrow comes out looking pretty. I'm going to have to rely on its superior recipe, rather than looks. It really is the best pecan pie recipe of all time, I say in all seriousness. The terrific woman who considered my grandmother as an honorary daughter created this version in the early half of the last century, and it is the only one I've ever had that wasn't unbearably sweet. It has been a family tradition to take this pie to all important gatherings, like the one I am attending tomorrow. My grandfather would expect no less.
Since my kids will be a couple thousand miles away this Thanksgiving, and my man won't be home for a while yet, I started thinking about how I would like next holiday season to be different. Assuming we are all in the country, and in jobs that allow us to have the whole weekend off, I have already put out the request that we spend the next Thanksgiving at my house, wherever it may be (here or elsewhere). I want as much of my family to be together as possible. If I can get my parents and brother to join us, all the better. My older daughter said she would come on one condition: she be allowed to cook quite a bit. I have trained her well. I started teaching her to cook for real by the time she was seven years old. She is brilliant in the kitchen, and fearless. Sometimes that lack of fear leads to unusual experiments, but I am totally willing to take those risks, letting her have free rein.
It's going to be strange, not getting up at dawn to start a turkey tomorrow. I need to set an alarm early enough to bake the one pie, to assemble the candied sweet potatoes I started tonight, and bake a few plain sweet potatoes too, and then put together a requested twice-baked cauliflower. That sounds like nothing compared to what I'm used to. I learned how to overdo it from my father's mother. That whole side of the family excels at excess, when it comes to dinner parties. Watching that grandma start cooking at 4 am taught me everything I needed to know about commitment to the meal. And believe me, if you had a choice of holiday dinners to attend, you would be wise to sit at her table. There are some family recipes there that make keeping the traditions so worth it. And I am nothing if not a traditionalist at the holidays.
No comments:
Post a Comment