Legendary Thanksgiving Dinner

Please welcome Slim Randles as today's Wednesday's guest. He has a cute story that tells us how not to plan a Thanksgiving dinner. Since it is never too soon to have some pumpkin pie - and mine are the best, just ask any of my kids -  we can all have a slice to go with our morning coffee. Hey, who says you can't have pie for breakfast? Hurry and grab you a piece before the pie is gone. Enjoy....

Courtesy of Deliciously Delicious where you can find a recipe for the pie

Steve will have Thanksgiving dinner over at Doc’s and Mrs. Doc’s this year, and any number of his friends are grateful for that. Steve is one heckuva cowboy and trainer of young colts, and a good friend to all, but he’d never make it as a dinner host.

Very few Thanksgiving dinners achieve legendary status, but “Steve’s Thanksgiving” was certainly one of them. Some said it happened because he’s lived alone and cooked meals for himself for so many years. Some say he has worked alone for so long that he isn’t of a coordinating mind. The answer could be buried in the middle there somewhere. Steve himself isn’t certain.

It all happened early in Fall a couple of years ago when Steve completed his cabin up in the mountains here. He’d even finished the turret. In about September of that year, he’d started cleaning the place up on his infrequent visits, because he just knew somewhere inside that he’d created a modest monument there and wanted to share it with his friends. Naturally.

So, back at the ranch bunkhouse down in the valley, he’d studied up on how to roast a turkey: what to put on it, how to thaw it, how to tell when it’s done, all that stuff.

Then he invited his friends for Thanksgiving dinner, up at the cabin. He told each one that he’d be fixing a turkey dinner up there and to come on up and have some fun. And each of them, in turn, asked Steve what they should bring for the dinner.

“Oh, I don’t care,” he’d said, “you know … whatever you’d like, I guess.”

He said that to Doc and Mrs. Doc. And Dud and Emily. And Herb. And Bert and Maizie. And Marvin and Margie. And Mavis at the Mule Barn.

That Thanksgiving Day was a sparkler … crisp sunshine, Fall colors. Oh man, it was great!

And the turkey was in that wood-fired Home Comfort range and looking brown and juicy when the friends started to arrive. They’d each made the considerable drive up the mountain to the end of the road, then walked in the last hundred yards to the warm and cozy little cabin.

And each of them … every one of them … brought a pumpkin pie.

Turkey and pumpkin pie. Traditional favorites on Thanksgiving. But … strangely enough, after three of the pies had been consumed, there were still some left over.

But hey, that turkey turned out all right. And this year, Steve’s going over to Doc’s and Mrs. Doc’s for dinner. Mrs. Doc told him to bring biscuits.
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Brought to you by Home Country, the book (now an ebook as well) on Amazon, Kindle

Wednesday's Guest - Tom Turkey

This time of year, turkeys are the most popular birds in the United States, so I thought I would go try to find one to see what he, or she, thinks about all this attention.

ME:  Um, excuse me. Are you a turkey?

TT:  Hey, keep it down. I'm trying to hide here.

ME:  Why?

TT:  Oh, you're not from around here, are you?

ME:  Actually, I am. Why?

TT:  Don't you know what tomorrow is?

ME:  Of course, it's Thanksgiving.

TT:  And what is the centerpiece of every Thanksgiving table? Yeah. You got it. Me. So that's why I'm hiding.

ME:  So... I'm guessing you are not too fond of the holiday.

TT:  Not unless it's being held at a vegan's house. Then I might even stop in for a bit of the corn.

ME:  Do you think they'd let you in?

TT:  It was a joke, already. As in that is the only house I'd willingly go to.

ME:  I see. I'm sensing that you would rather something else be the main dish at the Thanksgiving dinner.

TT:  You think? I'd suggest chicken, but they're my cousins. How about steak.

ME:  But a turkey was part of the first Thanksgiving dinner.

TT:  Yeah, but so was a lot of fish, and venison, and ducks, and other food. It's not fair that we are the only ones sacrificing for modern day celebrations.

ME:  You do have a good point there. Maybe you should hold a demonstration to protest.

TT:  Oh, that's a brilliant idea. Expose myself to the very people who want to eat me. Go on. Take your silly ideas and get out of here before I end up at some non-vegan house.

Happy Thanksgiving

For all of my American readers, I send out a heartfelt Happy Thanksgiving. I hope your day is blessed by the love of family, good food, and all the things that make lasting memories.

The following is another excerpt from the memoir I am writing:


There's an old Thanksgiving song that starts out, "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go..."

When I was a child, my Dad would break into that song as we crossed the Pennsylvania border into West Virginia on our annual pilgrimage to celebrate the Holiday with his family. "The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh, through the white and drifting snow..."

The closer we got to his childhood home, the heavier his foot rested on the gas pedal as our Chevy station wagon climbed the hills on twisting roads and flew on the downside. His rich baritone voice belted the song, and in my imagination we were on that sleigh behind dapple grays in their rhythmic trot. I could hear the clump of their hooves and feel the blowing snow bite my cheeks as we were carried along.

It was magic, pure and simple. A magic that continued for the few days that we stayed in that 'otherworld.'

Today as those memories float pleasantly through my mind, I can almost smell the wonderful aromas of sage dressing, pumpkin pie, and mulled cider that permeated my grandmother's house. And I can hear the bustle of activity accompanied by short bursts of conversation among the women in the kitchen. The front bedroom is where the men gathered and brought out instruments. Their music became another soundtrack.

My brothers, sisters, and I would join other cousins in the back bedroom in between our numerous trips outside. Our biggest challenge was to see who could roll down the hill and retain the most amount of snow, turning ourselves into living snowpeople. The second biggest challenge was to see who would have the honor of receiving the drumsticks. They were dolled out on a 'merit' system based loosely on which of us waited the most patiently for the great announcement, "Dinner's Ready."

With memories like that, it was hard for me to face the formidable task of creating Thanksgiving Days that would live in glory for my children.

We were living in Texas, so mountains and snow were out of the question, and my singing never could quite match my father's. I didn't possess even a tenth of the culinary skills of my grandmother and my aunts, so the meal would probably be lacking. And we were more than a thousand miles away from cousins to help distract my children from their impatience.

But despite those limits, we managed to muddle through. I did manage a passable dinner and my husband actually raved about the German dressing. The pies were a major hit, all ten of them, and everyone was willing to eat the broccoli for the promise of a second piece of pie. And after cheering the Dallas Cowboys to another victory, most years, we would all tumble outside for a family game of touch-football.

In sifting through all these random memories I realize that the memory itself is not what is important. What is, is the fact that we have memories and they don't happen by accident. No matter what we do to 'mark' these important occasions, it is vital that we do 'mark' them. Even if our process doesn't live up to a Martha Stewart image or our own fond remembrances of childhood.

So here's to our memories, no matter how we create them.