How was your Thanksgiving on the weekend? What? It was the previous weekend? Really? Okay. Ssshhhh.
Yeah, I know we were a week late. But we had it! We had Thanksgiving a week late for my boy. I cooked my first turkey dinner to make my kid happy. Anything for you Will.
Back story. My family had their own plans on Thanksgiving weekend. I had awesome weekend plans for Will and me, but they did not include dinner with my family. On the Friday, Will started talking about making ice cream for Thanksgiving and not having it hard because his cousin likes soft ice cream. I told him that we were just hanging by ourselves. All went quiet (which is NEVER a good sign) and when I looked over, tears were pouring down his face, count to five annnnd the wailing began. I hadn’t seen these tears since the fish funeral.
“But Mommy, Thanksgiving is all about family. How can we not be seeing our family?”
I choked back my own tears and tried to convince him that we are our family. And that it was really special for the two of us to be together. He wasn’t buying it. The weekend was filled with, “This is the worst Thanksgiving ever”. Thanks kid. That’s helping me out hugely. Dripping sarcasm.
So, I came up with the delayed Thanksgiving. A week late. A bird. Our family. Our house. One happy kid. Easy right?
Only catch? I’d never cooked a turkey dinner.
Only catch? I’d never cooked a turkey dinner. I’m a dish washer at our family functions. This is my role and I’m happy with it. You can digest with some alone time in the kitchen while you clean up the slop.
I spent last week googling – ‘easiest roast turkey’ – ‘simple mashed potatoes’ – ‘basic sausage stuffing’ – ‘quick mashed turnips’. You can stop laughing now. Yes. I looked up how to make mashed potatoes. Did you know you can actually just buy them, pre-made in a bag? I know this because I ate them for 9 months of pregnancy. But I was not going to cheat!
So. How did it go? Well. Here is one thing I learned. Yellow turnip is actually a rutabaga. But they don’t put that on the sign at the grocery store. Why not? Some girl is going to look at it and think, that looks like what my mom used for turnip, but it says rutabaga. Then she’ll google it and see a picture of a white turnip. She’ll buy the white one. Cook it. Mash it. Taste it. Gag. And throw it in the garbage. Then she’ll google YELLOW turnip and see a rutabaga. Next, she’ll buy some green beans.
missing the food!
I also learned that I put WAY too much pressure on myself to succeed sometimes. Saturday night my friend Simon reminded me that I once effed up three step rice by leaving out one step. I think I slept for three hours after. I was so nervous.
In the end, all of it was fine. I had my sister make the gravy so if everything was gross, it could be smothered in gravy. But it wasn’t. And seeing how happy Will was to have everyone at our house, around our table, was a great reminder that I could have served Alpo because it wasn’t the food that mattered. His simple love of his aunts, uncles and cousins is infectious.
I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. We really did love both of ours. And if you need to find me this Christmas, I’ll be in the kitchen….doing the dishes.
p.s. I was just reading InStyle tonight – and they had a recipe for mashed turnips. NOTE RUTABAGA! Where were you on Saturday night for godsakes?!
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