Thanksgiving has always been a favorite holiday of mine. It falls in my favorite season, and it is so wonderfully celebrated without gifts, etc. Making a beautiful table is a treat, and I can think back to many beautiful table settings ready for a colorful and delicious meal. And if you are one who likes to cook – it is the mother of all dinners. For me, it is somewhat patriotic, and peaceful, and when you think about it, has unfailingly brought together different peoples, and different foods resulting in a wonderful celebration.
As most of you know, I grew up in a very Eastern European household where food was always in abundance. Our meals were always delicious and filling and our holidays overflowed with tradition. Thanksgiving was something new to my Grandmother – having come to America in 1912, I would guess she learned about Thanksgiving either from her children or her neighbors. She was a good cook and loved always having plenty for all of us to eat and for the adults to drink.
Turkey, of course, was the centerpiece, a stuffing of bread well-seasoned with onion and celery that was soft, but fluffy and very traditional; mashed potatoes with lots of sweet butter and cream; the very best candied sweet potatoes that I still can’t duplicate – sticky and crunchy on the edges and soft in the center; green beans mixed with sauteed onion (in butter); cauliflower polonaise – cauliflower sprinkled with breadcrumbs sauted in onion and butter until crispy; mushrooms in sour cream (the recipe begins with onion sauteed in butter). And of course gravy made fron the giblets, heart and liver of the turkey. We never served bread with any meal, and we rarely had a first course. You may laugh, but remember, I come from Eastern European roots – corn was never served at Thanksgiving!
Until recently, we never added or withdrew a dish. When my daughter, Karin, married almost twenty years ago, her husband Dave requested his much-loved creamed onions. My sisters and I thought creamed onions looked like eyeballs in milk when we were younger, but alas, we added creamed onions. Ironically, my husband, Doug, asked for them the first year we were married. So creamed onions are now officially on the Thanksgiving menu. I might add too, that when my daughter-in-law and my son join us, Shellee (from her southern roots) always makes sweet potato puff which is as good as it sounds, and ambrosia, both welcome dishes at the table any time.
The family always liked abundance in food, and desserts were always plentiful, and still are. Of course pumpkin pie and (real) whipped cream, sour cream apple pie with walnuts and raisins, chocolate cream pie, cheese cake and usually another “in” dessert. I am usually the baker.
When my son Larry and nephew John were in high school, my sister Marge came up with a new dessert – Heath Bar Crunch Cake. Pretty simple in ingredients, it starts with a good angel food cake. The top of the cake is sliced off and set aside. Then the center of the cake is hollowed out and filled with a mixture of crushed heath bars and whipped cream. The sliced off top is replaced and the whole cake is frosted with the remaining heath bar/whipped cream mixture. The first year we served it, the two boys didn’t share it with anyone – they each ate a half. Any guy with a sweet tooth will love this cake!
The gathering, as far back as I can remember, was always at my fraternal Grandmother’s house which was the second floor front unit in my grandparent’s six-family house and always celebrated in the afternoon. We sat down to dinner in the early afternoon to a table set with a white table cloth. There were no flowers or centerpiece – the food was the main attraction. It was just a fine meal that my grandmother prepared and my mother and aunts always helped wth the cooking and cleanup while the men settled down to either talk politics or play pinochle. I loved living in that six-family house. It was so much fun to see all the relatives working together to prepare for a holiday. We never had anyone at our table from what my mother called “the outside”. In those days there were 14 and maybe 16 if my bachelor Uncle Ed came with a girlfriend. Remember, we didn’t have a TV until probably 1952, so no football was available.
When we moved to Middletown NJ, my mother hosted. The dining room of our split level 50’s tract house was very small as was the kitchen, so my mother decided to use the downstairs “rumpus room” as the dining room. For those that have never been in a split level, there are two or three levels with at least six steps in between. The bottom level was above ground with the “den” and “rumpus room” and a half bath in between along with an entrance to the stairway down to the cellar. Both of these rooms were of the same size and both had a picture window on one wall. There were six stairs up to the small kitchen, small dining room and living room; and six more steps up to two bedrooms and a full bath – and, six more steps up to another bedroom. The den turned into my bedroom when I started high school and left the room I shared with Marge all to her. Susan was on the top floor.
Regarding the floorplan of the house, I wonder what the architect was thinking with two rooms of the same genre being next to eachother. You need to know that my father never set foot in the “den” and we didn’t rumpus in the rumpus room. It was the room with our TV, but basically my sisters and I used it to practice cartwheels. The mid level had a good sized living room but the dining room was no more than a short sliver with a divider into the kitchen. I’ve tried several times to find information about the development in which we lived; can’t find a thing but the original property plans, lot by lot. I laugh today to think that whomever designed the floor plans could not have thought about convenience.
With the kitchen being one level up from the rumpus-room-turned-dinning room my mother and aunt went up and down many times to deliver the Thanksgiving Dinner. Then up and down many times to clean up! I honestly don’t know how they did it, but they never complained and we all had a great time. Note: all of the furniture had to be removed from the rumpus room and the dining room furniture had to be moved down the stairs – and back again after the holiday!
My parents moved to Lavallette two years after I graduated from high school; this time to a two-story custom-built colonial. The house was 4 square rooms on the first floor and four on the second. On the first floor front were the living room and dining room and in the back a family room and kitchen. The dining room was adjacent to the kitchen and large enough to hold at least 20 people.
Each year, from the time I could remember we would have the same group of family members and always from my father’s side. All of us loved to be together on holidays, however, as time went by, we lost some members and their places were filled with very good friends.
After both of my parents passed Marge took over as host an I would travel down from New York, the day before to help in preparing. Our kids were now in college and being welcomed home as were their friends. The night before Thanksgiving turned into one unbelievable party, always at my sister’s house, and always included great pizza and other treats from her restaurant, Klees, in Seaside Park. Thanksgiving Day included the family and our very good friends, Pat Ryan and her son Jason. As you will remember Pat lives here in Paradise and her son is still a very close friend of my son and my nephew. And most of the time, we added people who had no place to go.
As the years have gone by and our children married, Thanksgiving as I knew it became pretty diluted. Our children and grandchildren are shared with their husbands’ families but every now and then we would try to get everyone in the same place, but it was pretty difficult. The last time the family was all together in one place was six years ago at my home in Tampa and the moving of furniure went on once again. Marge an I cooked together, and we rented all the dinnerware, table clothes and napkins and glasses, so the cleanup was easier. The menu was exactly the same and served in the afternoon. We had an added benefit that year: my nephew John’s father-in-law, Al, carved the turkey. Al had training as a butcher and he carved a turkey like I have never seen before. He removed the entire skin, less the wigs an legs, sliced the breast and thigh meat perfecty and put it all back together again. It was a beautiful thing to bring a whole turkey to the table! Doug and I were not yet married at the time, and I can remember talking to him on the phone describing the wonderful dinner and his telling me about the shrimp thermador that was served at the Hood Ranch in Westcliffe. I was glad I was home.
I have only once eaten a Thanksgiving dinner away from home and that was when I was in high school. I had a crush on a boy and he on me, so I was invited to his home for Thanksgiving. There were only four of us at the table (the two of us and his parents) But a lovely dinner it was. I was glad to be invited but sad to be away from the traditional family menu; however I did have my hot turkey sandwich with stuffing the next day!
For the last few years in Austin, New York and Sarasota, I have cooked for friends and neighbors – and last year and the year before it was just Doug and me. Same menu, though, cooked with lots of good memories of Thankgivings past and eaten in the afternoon.
This year, we will travel to my daughter’s home in Yardley, PA. We look forward to experiencing the cool, crisp fall weather. I’m not sure how many we will have, but there is one thing I can be sure of, the same menu that was prepared by my grandmother many years ago, will be prepared once again and we will allow the creamed onions on the table! And of course, after dinner we will sit in front of the fireplace and listen to the first Christmas Carols of the Season – thanksgiving for Thanksgiving.
Paradise Found 