My Apologies to Jennifer
Woman in the Middle | November 28, 2014My mother cooked Thanksgiving Dinner from scratch year after year. It was delicious every time. When I got my very first full time job out of college, I worked with a woman named Jennifer. One day, right before Thanksgiving, she and I were discussing what we would be having for the big dinner. She mentioned that she took some shot cuts, such as using boxed stuffing mix. I was appalled. Not make Thanksgiving from scratch? How could she even consider it? I am sure how I felt about her semi-homemade Thanksgiving was written all over my face….
A couple of years later, right after I married Hubby, my mother developed health problems and Thanksgiving dinner (and every other holiday dinner for that matter) became my duty. With my mother and my grandmother (and Brother Dear, too) all expecting the same delicious dinner that Mom always made, I slapped on the cook hat and for several years I cooked Thanksgiving dinner from scratch, just the way mom did. The year I was pregnant with my second daughter it just about killed me. The next year I decided that it was time to make some changes.
Ever since then we have had Thanksgiving dinner in a variety of ways. We have gone out to restaurants. We have bought already cooked meals in a box from the grocery store. This year we had what I would call semi-homemade, just like my co-worker said she did so many years ago. Thanksgiving dinner is like the Super Bowl of meals and even doing it the semi-homemade route, it is a lot of work. I now completely understand why Jennifer took a few short cuts on her way to getting the big meal on the table.
My older self would like to offer Jennifer, wherever she is, my apologies for looking down my nose at how she made Thanksgiving Dinner some thirty years ago. Ah, the arrogance of youth! And the wisdom of middle age!
The SITS Girls
My cooking style has changed considerably. I make things in advance that I never would have in the past. Some sides have been eliminated completely. There is too much food anyway. Last year I started working with canned gravy *gasp, do I hear my mother turning in her grave?* I found that I could do a few things to it to make it taste like Mom’s.
Nothing is more unpleasant, I think, than stuffing my arm down the rear end of a dead turkey first thing in the morning….
As we get older we can see things differently and discover shot cuts are a good thing and doesn’t take any thing away from what we are doing, us women have a habit of making life hard for ourselves
Two Thanksgivings ago I made Thanksgiving dinner. Ahem. The gravy was in jars. The stuffing was out of a box. The cranberry sauce was from a can. So were the green beans though a bit “doctored” up. The whole effect was delicious!