Walk In The Park: 100 miles in the kitchen

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

100 miles in the kitchen

Today I realized that I have not cooked a Christmas meal in my kitchen in over five years. It all felt so strange. I forgot to put the turkey in the oven. [Had one child not asked, "Is the turkey in the oven?" we would have been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.] It was clear that I was not on my game.

But once started, it all came back (I have cooked a couple of Thanksgiving meals - one at home, one at the river - in the past few years, but somehow Christmas seems "higher stakes." ). It is not a hard thing to do, but you have to think about it. Timing is an issue. Coordination of effort is necessary. [You have to clean off your counters too.]

When my mother was still alive we would be home for most holidays. I watched her organize the feast for days - cook the cornbread with onions and celery, make the Christmas cookies (Christine cookies, Lizzies, spreckle cookies and Russian Rocks*). She had turkey broth in the freezer to make the gravy. She made mountains of food - enough for an army - she would say. We all pitched in and learned by doing.

And everything would be ready about the same time - noon. We always ate at noon. Other people have mid-afternoon Christmas meals, but we did not. And we set up extra tables as the family grew.

I cook (mostly) the way my mother cooked, but work and other things have interfered with my planning and preparation for this holiday. And as I cooked today, I felt Mom with me.

I heard her instructions for making the dressing** "soppy enough." And I was surrounded by her cooking equipment. The turkey breast thawed in a pan Mom admitted she swiped from an employer in the early 50s (I can say this now - the statute of limitations has run.).We spread the vegetables out on Mother's foil-lined jelly roll pans. *** We cooked potatoes in the large soup pot that was hers (I gave mine away to MC and kept Mom's, dented bottom and all). I strained the flour/water thickening for the gravy**** through a old strainer that I know was hers.

After my grandmother died, Mom and I would often talk about her as we worked in the kitchen. I can hear her telling me "My mother is with me all the time." I didn't understand it then. I do now.

NOTES:

* I have had two requests for cookie recipes information this holiday season (and one request at Thanksgiving for Grandma's dressing recipe), but I have baked nary a cookie. I may have to bake in the new year and mail out the cookies.

** "Not too much sage, now. Aunt Helen always had the perfect amount of sage in hers."

*** I scrubbed these pans with steel wool and got most of the old burnt on grease and whatever off. And I gave my sister a pan when she spied them in my kitchen (And I told her how long it took me to scrub them clean.).

**** This gravy was a beautiful brown, but was a little thin. One year my sister and I giggled hysterically about having no Kitchen Bouquet to brown the gravy. [Mom taught us about Kitchen Bouquet, too] We each came up with the same idea - try a drop or so of red food coloring. Well, DON'T DO IT! We had pink gravy that year and still joke about the year of the pink gravy. And now we make sure there is KB in the cabinet.