Prep Cook

 I am currently prepping my "what I'm thankful for" bit for the table this Thursday. It is taking me a little longer than it has in years past, primarily due to the empty chair left by my mother. This was the lady who made more grasshopper pies than I will ever be able to count. She was the one who talked me through my first turkey, stuffing and all. As years passed, and I became more confident in my bird prep, I would still call her to walk through the details. Having a speaker phone with all of the attendant butter and other slippery bits keeping my hands full made it more feasible, and it was a little like having her in the kitchen with me, looking over my shoulder.

And I know that the conventional wisdom is that she will always be there, but not having someone to encourage my periodic flights of fancy, like using chopped apple instead of celery in the Joy of Cooking basic stuffing recipe. Discussion of the complete lack of nutrition found in the frozen dessert named for an insect could fill another hour. 

This was the lady who once prepared a miniature version of the feast that my friend and I were missing because we were too wracked with grief to make the trip out to the farm to eat with the family. Little tin containers of gravy and potatoes and a turkey breast to warm in our oven, filling that bachelor pad that was less one of its roommates. 

I will always treasure the memory of driving the car she was saddled with after my parents were divorced, a maroon Chrysler New Yorker, across the plains of Colorado with my younger brother riding shotgun. We played the cassette deck loud, with mom riding patiently in the back while we did our brother thing. 

Not too long after that, I returned to Boulder over Thanksgiving because my father was in a burn ward after the plane crash that would eventually take his life. Dinner that year was cold and quiet. We used the family china, and we tried to put on the feedbag like we always had, but appetites were hard to find and even the Grasshopper pie couldn't liven up our collective taste buds. 

This year I will be putting the best I've got out on the table. The bird. The pie. The experimental stuffing. And we'll be serving it on my mother's china. I expect it will be more flavorful than the meal we shared all those years ago. When my friend died. When my dad died. My mom once cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner at the last minute when weather cancelled our annual trip out to the farm. Everything I learned from her will go into this meal.

And I am thankful for the opportunity to make it.