Traditions

Thanksgiving Morning 2005: I am in preparation mode.
I have two mandolines set up on the kitchen island ready to slice, dice and julienne the ingredients of my winter vegetable salad. It’s mainly fennel, celery root and parsley in good vinaigrette and spiked with Castlemango (an aged Piedmont mountain cheese) difficult to find, even in NYC. But thanks to the miracle of the Internet – I have obtained it – at a price. I only have the salad to make. But I have to make enough for forty. Thanksgiving is a group effort in this family. It has to be.
Younger child arrived in a cab from LaGuardia early this morning. He could only get tickets on the crack of dawn flight out of Chicago. He is already in his childhood bedroom under the covers, the result of having worked until 2:00 or 3:00 AM last night. I don’t understand this. I see it in his sister too, and their father. Where does this drive and necessity to work late into the night come from? Is it that my job is so different than theirs? – The emergencies of childhood so able to wait until tomorrow? Most of them solved by a good night’s sleep anyway.
We will take off about 3:00 PM or so. The drive to Rumson, NJ normally takes only an hour but getting there from Brooklyn involves driving through Staten Island and that can be a problem even when it’s not Thanksgiving. If we get there by 5:00 PM it will give us a good two hours of drinking and hors d’oeuvres before the main meal. This will insure that we won’t be able to eat more than a teaspoonful of each of the many courses served. It will also guarantee that the lability-index will be sufficiently ratcheted up by the time the “toast-grace” is given by my sister and or brother-in-law. As they lost a son in April – an amazing and wonderful person – I can’t imagine what they will come up with to be thankful for.