Half a Step Over

Thanksgiving Saga

It’s my holiday. We don’t celebrate Christmas and I needed something besides religious holidays to bring both sides of the family together so for more than 35 years, I’ve done Thanksgiving. But, do not picture 15 or 20 people sitting around a groaning board and chowing down. In my best year of just family, it was seven people. My husband is an only child so there were no siblings from there; and my sister never married, so essentially, my two daughters are it. That’s not to say that I haven’t had more. For several years, my daughter’s roommate came but we were still at seven because my mother-in-law had passed away (which had left us at six for a few years. One year we invited a family whose house was under repair, so that pushed us to eleven.

And then my older daughter started to date the man she ultimately married. She came from Denver for Thanksgiving, so he started to come too. That was good for my husband because it gave him another guy at the table—and watching the football games intently. Then, after they were married, we invited his family to come east as well and join us. We went back up to ten.

The Healthy, Yet Jewish, Food

But in our house, the issue wasn’t even so much the numbers as what we served. I call it the nontraditional Thanksgiving. First, there’s no sweet potato pie with marshmallows. Usually, there’s no gravy either. Yes, there’s a turkey, and there’s stuffing, and I even pick up a can of cranberry sauce, which my mother (and my late mother-in-law) particularly like. And I make a big salad—mine are the kind that include a wide variety of vegetables, from celery to turnips. But there are other side dishes to.

My standard is potato latkes—the kind that are traditional at Chanukah time. They are a staple of the meal and there are almost no leftovers. When my mother and sister arrive for dinner, they immediately go looking for them to nibble on before we even start. And trust me, the latke effort isn’t easy. My hands don’t work as well as they used to so my older daughter has taken over the peeling. Fortunately, she is fantastic at it. I’ve never seen anyone peel 10 potatoes that fast. If I’m not careful to count them out beforehand, I’d have 20 potatoes in 12 minutes. But I still do the grinding – we are incredibly thankful that day for the food processor—and the mixing and the cooking, I use two frying pans to make the cooking time shorter. But if I say so, I make a mean latke and they are the highlight of dinner. Even my son-in-law, who was not raised near latkes, loves them.

And then there’s the other possible side dish—and no, it’s nothing with green beans although lately we do make dishes with them. No, I’m talking derma. This is a hard-to-explain food that I buy in the kosher delicatessen, and heat slowly usually in the microwave. It’s a little spicy, but the children love it—I’ve always been partial to it as well. (When my younger daughter was in the third grade they had to keep journals and she talked about derma in her Thanksgiving entry. The teacher had no idea what she was talking about, but thought it sounded interesting.)

Part the regulation dessert are chocolate raisin drops. It's a recipe I found in a cookbook many years ago with almost no prep time--just mix, drop, and let it sit. They are now a staple, and my younger daughter has also made them for parties she's been invited to. The trick is to hide them once they're made or I have half the number I started with when I go to put them out. Nowadays, the issue is finding German sweet chocolate, which for some reason a lot of supermarkets don't seem to carry anymore. So, if I see it a month before, I get it so I'm prepared. 

 Family Prep Time

And finally, there’s the cooking. When my children were small, obviously they didn’t do a lot to help with the cooking. In the last few years, though, my life has been much easier. I still handle the turkey setup, and the latkes—and all of the shopping since they live far away—but they handle the rest of it. My older daughter handles the potatoes, but also pitches in on salad prep. My younger daughter takes over on desserts. So while we have some standards—my son-in-law is requesting pies—she also always arrives with recipes for something new or different from our norms. She gives me the shopping list in advance and I fulfill it, but after that, it’s all her job. And it’s wonderful. It gives me a chance to better enjoy the day. I have a lot of counter space so we each have our station and can do our own thing. I really look forward to this every year because we’re now most three adults working together, although I, as mom, am the deciding factor in all disagreements.

Thanksgiving, my holiday for as long as I can hold onto it.