GOBBLE-TOV!
surviving my first time hosting Thanksgiving ... and Hanukkah ... err ... Thanksgivukkah?
a.k.a. Will I ever live down that pie?
"Baruch ata Adonai, Elo- ... Kevin, if you reach for a latke one more time, I'm shoving this turkey so far up your ass you'll be tasting stuffing!"
Benjamin Kissell
Well, it had to happen.
The truth had to come out eventually.
I mean, when you move in with someone you simply cannot hide anything [successfully] from him [unless you discount birthday, Christmas and any/all assorted presents ... because THAT sort of hiding is an art form]. So it should come as no surprise that it was relatively swifly after my boyfriend and I moved in together that a secret of mine came to light? And not one of those tiny little 'I chew my nails' types of secrets.
[Yes, I do chew my nails. Not really a secret ... I don't think.]
Nor was it one of those 'Aww, how cute ... I didn't know that you SIMPLY HAVE TO have the toilet paper roll a particular way' over/under neuroses. [Team: Over for the win, bitches]
No. It was more along the lines of 'I can't believe I didn't know this about you - how the hell didn't I know this already' types.
John learned a dirty, dark secret that I've done my best to keep hidden from prying eyes the better part of the last 2 decades.
I? Can cook.
Let me begin with the caveat that I? Am no chef - I suck and blow [in equal parts] at baking (don't ask me why: I can cook but not bake - it baffles my mind, too). But I am definitely capable of cooking. True, my best cooking comes from my tried-and-true cookbook (a.k.a. the telephone directory).
I learned my culinary skills from my Mum whilst growing up; no one can whip up a Chinese delivery dinner quite like she can ["Yes nice lady, we deliver to you. You pay with check? No problem for you." may be the patter from our favorite local Fortune Gourmet]. Yes, she can cook (rather well, I may add) [and she can bake, WTF?!] ... but, why cook when you don't need to? Why mess up a pile of dishes, pots and pans when you can just as easily dial, sign and toss away the dirty plastic utensils?
There are apparently hi-friggin-larious annecdotes told about my early [and not-so-early] attempts at cooking - stories shared by family (the "Frozen Broccoli Incident"), friends (the "Frozen Beef Incident") and possibly random strangers (the "Smoke-Detector-Caught-Me-Trying-To-Make-Waffles-One-Day-At-Work" Incident) and of course the story told to warn my boyfriend about my 'culinary prowess' [sheesh, microwave one bowl of pancake batter because you're batshit scared of using your new gas stove-top and suddenly it's late-breaking news] ... is it any wonder I kept any skills I possess a secret?
So, it was with a mild reticence that I revealed my closely held secret; but, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?
...............
Flash forward to about a week before Thanksgiving when my beautifully-crafted work schedule got thrown six-ways-to-hell and I suddenly found myself stuck with the 3-11pm shift on Thanksgiving [which neatly answered our burning question of 'whose family do we spend the holiday with'].
Whilst I sat bemoaning the situation John pointed out that the first night of Hanukkah was the day before Thanksgiving this year - which we both now had off - and an idea formed ... why not have our own Thankgsiving/Hanukkah celebration?
A Thanksgivukkah if you will.
We could make a variety of Hebrew-centric foods, Thanksgiving staples and use the combined holidays as an excuse to ignore things we didn't like and found just plain gross [I'm looking at you yams and any/all things marshmellow'd - ugh!] while making extras of things we do.
The more we talked about it, the better it sounded.
Heck, why not invite family and actually host something ourselves? Since I was set to miss my own family's celebration, why not invite my Mum over? [Admittedly, she is my favorite; she and John get along swimmingly AND she is the only family I enjoy spending large quantities of time with - see my 2012, 29th Birthday family vacation as a perfect example of why one should keep out of prolonged exposure to my family.] We would host our very first holiday together as a couple and show off our new apartment while we were at it.
We had it all set: guests, theme, decor and a meal plan. We had this Thanksgivukkah in the bag.
We were (hashtag) winning before we'd even begun.
That was until I realized John would be working until 8am (subsequently napping until 1pm) and what with dinner being set to begin at around 5pm ... um ... the largesse of the meal prep was ... *gasp* ... in my hands.
Damn. Why had I let him in on my secret?
...............
Tuesday night I left work at 11:30pm and hot-footed it over to Wal-Mart to do some inspired [read: last minute and hopefully cheap, but still Martha Stewart approved] Thanksgivukkah prep shopping.
Butter on sale? 2lb tub, please. $5 for a 6lb can of green beans? Just because I doubt I can eat 6lbs of green beans in a month's time doesn't mean I don't see this as practically a steal. Cranberries? Whole, canned, craisin'd? Yes, I'll take all 3 for my Stacey Ballis inspired pie. Several different types of stuffing to infuse in various casseroles and side-dishes? What the hey, one only does this once a year [and hopefully only once in a lifetime, looking back at the receipt, now] ... I justify each of my impulse purchases for the meal as I toss them in the cart [perhaps shopping on a completely light-headed-inducing empty stomach after a 9 hour work-shift wasn't the brightest move of mine].
Before thirty minutes had passed, my cart was piled high and I hadn't even tackled the scariest of all scaries - the feariest of fear factors - for the holiday: the turkey.
Despite my now-slightly-known not-as-bad-as-rumored kitchen talent, I'll remain a tad squeamish about risking trikinosis and food-poisoning-in-general for my family [well, some of them anyways] and the thought of completely fucking up the turkey had been kicking my ass for days. Discretion is the better part of valor, they say and I ... well, I chickened out [yes, I just made a poultry joke within a poultry tale, eat me] and instead of the gorgeous Tom Turkeys, bare-breasted in their netting, I reached in and grabbed a pack of turkey drumsticks and a breast from the shelf above.
All the taste, half the prep, almost none of the risk. Victory, I say.
Of course, between the dawdling through the aisles as I lurched across the whole of Wal-Mart hoping to find everything which would do Martha Stewart proud, the lady in front of me with her two-frigging-carts-full-and-why-is-this-the-only-check-out-lane-open-at-this-hour and my sheer exhaustion [and possible ADHD due to SHINY THINGS WHICH I WANT TO BUY RIGHT NOW, NOW, NOW - PUT THEM IN MY BASKET!] it wasn't until almost 1:00am that I walked out of the doors towards my car and the comfort of home.
It felt like only moments had passed since I'd closed them when I found myself opening my eyes to the sound of our rescue (and rather cantankerous) cat, Bitch Pudding [duh duh duhduh du-uh Bitch Pudding!] ... I mean Bridget, tossing her cookies rather loudly in the doorway to the bedroom. *sigh* But of course, this would be the portent of my first large culinary foray, right?
Bridget successfully managed to get sick three times between waking my tired-butt up at 6:30 and my co-ercing John awake at about 1:00pm.
I really tried not to take it personally.
She really tried not to take it personally when I closed her in the bedroom.
If you look closely, you'll possibly find my sanity
lost amidst the cranberries, and side-dish prep
[Not pictured: sodas, the assorted spices I finally added
to our barely-begun kitchen, the additional box of potato spuds
and the resounding lack of proper cooking utensils - D'oh!]
In-between tasting nips at our multi-hour and rooms-spanning cooking and gulps of chilled moscato [what? I'm not a machine, dammit!] I decide to take a page out of Stacey's Thanksgiving playbook and live-tweet my preparations. Much like our mutual friend Jen's live-tweeting of Halloween 2012 it was short-lived and wine-fueled profanity ... Whoops?
In a few hours' time the apartment was transformed from a hurricane of preparations into a lovely and welcoming abode chock full of delicious smells.
The stuffing? Crisped and browned beautifully. The casseroles we both made (his: a brilliant twist on the classic green bean casserole, mine: a mash-up of classic veggies, gravy and stuffing) were cooling on the trivets [SQUEE! We have trivets!]; the passel of potato products were warming in the oven (latkes I made on the griddle, mashed red garlic and Parmesan potatoes and gravy); the matzo ball soup John had made wafted delicious garlic-and-onion-y smells our way from the stove-top as it kept warm and the turkey? Cooked without a hitch. It turned out fall-off-the-bone smooth and herbed and sliced easily.
Our appetizers? Delicious Naan bread warmed and served with a smoked-bacon and cheddar [what? I wasn't eating it's delicious un-kosher-ness ... despite wishes I were] cheese ball, Hawaiian bread with spinach/artichoke dip and hand-made onion-and-garlic bread crisps [totally John's handiwork and idea - Lord, do I love this man!] - all amazing, all culinarily classic and tasty and all successes (plus? Mum brought pretzel sticks and a to-die-for [especially being lactose-intolerant] Vermont white cheddar spread).
So, why in the name of all-things-Thanksgivukkah did the only thing I made from SCRATCH and assume super-easy - my cranberry and vanilla pie - end up causing me to pull out my hair? It looked so beautiful sitting there on the shelf, glistening purple and pink with a hint of white underneath. It looked gorgeous on the counter as we spread out the dessert buffet - apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan and my cranberry concotion. It looked and smelled divine as I began the first cut into it with the server. It quivered along with me in anticipation.
Trust me when I tell you that my descriptions here fall utterly short of describing how sumptuous it looked before it was to be brought to my plate [and being a writer with no-small-amount-of-narcissism for my own writing talents, that's saying something] or how divine it tasted.
Trust me again when I tell you that you most certainly didn't want to look at it while you ate it for fear of losing your appetite ... or, if you're my family, losing your ability to form whole sentences amidst fits of laughter. In-between chuckles, choking-giggles and breath-stealing-tear-forming-guffaws John and Mum likened its appearance to 'a bird after it hit a window' and 'what you find on the sidewalk after the pigeons hung out in the pear trees' and even going so far as to liken it to 'The Blob ... except The Blob had more consistency'. I'd love to say I took umbrage and cocked a sarcastic eyebrow and tossed off a brilliantly scathing one-liner ... except, I was laughing right with them. It really did turn out looking like what Turkey in the Straw left behind ... in the straw.
If you can laugh at the fun, the insanity and the myriad of interesting (and sometimes downright manic) things life throws at you when you take chances, sometimes? It turns out pretty cool.
...............
After 2 days of losing my mind prepping and bracing for my first holiday as 1) part of a couple and 2) hosting, this first foray turned out rather tasty and fabulous (if not a pain to clean up behind, even when your boyfriend is washing most of the dishes [have I mentioned how much I love this man?].)
Sometimes you slice the pie and its gorgeous, tasty and lands on your plate with the perfect Martha Stewart approved aplomb (and hand-whipped cream). And sometimes? Sometimes you slice the pie, it falls apart and looks like the mess you step aside on the sidewalk to get away from. As long as it tastes good, your guests have fun and you can go to bed with a smile [and without stomach cramps] you're totally a hashtag winner.
Recent Comments