The day before Thanksgiving. Normally, in years when the family gathered, it would be near chaos here, at the farmhouse. There have always been three meals in the game plan for Thursday -- a breakfast for when everyone arrives (baked goods, some store bought, some freshly made), a lunch that keeps them all from going wild with hunger when the turkey is not even near ready (roasted squash soup with dumplings, chive scones), and then of course the Big Meal.
By comparison, this year, Wednesday is quiet. But not as quiet as it was in the years when the kids were taking their families elsewhere for the holiday. I don't know why, but this year, I decided to do a Thanksgiving meal for just Ed and me. Maybe it was because for a while I thought we may be having at least one young family here for the day. So I began making plans for that possibility. When we realized we couldn't pull it off safely, I could have cancelled the whole deal: the bird, the side dishes -- all of it. Ed wouldn't have batted an eye.
But I did not cancel. Somewhere in my head I thought that in cooking along with my daughters (albeit not in the same kitchens), I'd be part of their day more fully (and they would be keeping tabs on my turkey as much as they had in years when they were in the next room). I did beg the turkey farmers for a shift to a small bird, but they told me that this year, their birds grew and grew. They picked out the smallest of their flock and last I heard the turkey clocked in at 13 pounds. I am grateful that Ed likes frozen leftovers, otherwise we'd be eating turkey from now until Christmas.
[A bit of trivia for you: are all Thanksgiving turkeys Toms? For some reason, I always imagined that they were. But it's not so. First of all, male turkeys are more appropriately called gobblers. Why? Because they gobble as they chase the girls. But, tom will do. If your turkey is big, like over 15 pounds, then it's nearly certain that it's a gobbler. The smaller ones? It's a toss up. All hens are small, but I suppose at 13 pounds, mine could be a scrawny gobbler or a robust hen.]
Still, my Thanksgiving this year is greatly simplified. There is only so much food you want to make for two people (especially where at least one of them never wastes leftovers). We'll skip the lunch prep. And breakfast? As you know all too well, Ed and I always have breakfast. This year I'll add a baked good option. But I wont be baking it.
Given all this, my Wednesday is nothing if not easy.
I get up late, face the anxious cats (where is our food??)...
Walk the wet and bare farmette lands... (snow? what snow?)
And fix us a breakfast that Ed is willing to take outside, even though it is 41F (5C). One of the cats is out there and he wants to keep her company!
[We are in a state of cat shock: sometime in late August one of the big guys, a twin brother to Friendly, disappeared. We assumed he died because he was, like his brother, very affectionate. We called him Friendly II. Yesterday, he showed up again! Scampered into the shed for the morning feeding, startling his siblings and me, happy to reintegrate into our daily routines. Was he lost? Sick? Hurt? As usual with these cats, there is a lot that we will never know. So once again, we have six cats with us here.]
At noon, I drive to do my curbside pick ups. Bakery first! I'm a bit wistful. It's raining hard, but I'm staying outside. I dare peak in, but what good is that -- I can't inhale that bakery smell that I love so much. No matter. I open the trunk, hop back into the car and wait, imagining that maybe next year I'll buy out all the croissants and cinnamon rolls and apple cakes, letting loose all that pent up craving for a real bakery experience.
Next, I drive to where the turkey farmers are distributing their prepurchased toms and hens. (Turkey pick up in someone's driveway...)
Honestly, I haven't had such a fresh bird since my grandma chased a hen around the yard and took an ax to her over a tree stump before Sunday dinner. We will see tomorrow if I can do her (or maybe him) justice.
Evening. In normal times, you do not want to cook big stuff on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. You're gunning to meet holiday deadlines. But I'm not really gunning for anything grand this year and so I get a tiny bit ambitious tonight. I have a huge mound of tatsoi (that deeply green veggie that is sort of like bok choi only different) and lots of clumps of fresh ginger from my CSA farmers. A sautee is in order. Too, I have this ground salmon which could be made into delicious Bun Cha (Vietnamese meatballs, typically made with pork, but in this case -- with the bits of fish that remain after cutting the salmon fillets).
A big meal on Wednesday. That's not a good thing! Ah, but this year, we are allowed to break the rules.
And then I settle in to do some reading, allowing myself to think back to other years and other meals, feeling grateful that at a time when there is so much wrong with life on this planet, there, too, is so much that's right and good and noble.
