BETTER LATE THAN . . .

We had our little Thanksgiving gathering last night, postponed and consulted on and dithered about with three sets of us, with our first group having to make what my Daddy always called a “flying trip,” when a visit was short.  The GA bunch came last Sunday, spent thee nights---I had great daytimes to spend with the Kiddos, while their parents went house-hunting a couple of hours away (hooray!  Closest they’ve ever lived).  We all gathered for our suppers together, and had a wonderful time, but no chance of settling in to a real Thanksgiving dinner together.

So we settled on last night, for the few of us “in town,” and little did we know . . .    You know how I’ve always liked the combination of pink and orange, especially at Thanksgiving, when it’s time to bring out the special old cloth and those fabulous clunky pink Fostoria goblets?   Or just in general, enhancing my new kitchen with a few Fall items all around this room? 

Well.  The niceties of that certainly did NOT predict nor include having a big old ORANGE extension cord wound all across kitchen counter, behind the sink, and down to the coffee-and-Bose corner, because suddenly THAT plug gave up the ghost as well.   And there we were, with things out of place, and all that cooking going on, and suddenly it dawned:   Whatever breaker that plug was on must deal with the FURNACE, as well, for we were getting colder and colder, and no warming chuff of the igniting, nor the cheery hum of the faithful fan to distribute the warm air.   A call to “our” electrician whose month of delays occasioned the taking-down and desperate putting-back-up of the kitchen cabinets before the GA contingent arrived brought him immediately to the house while all the good dinner smells of sage and onion and sweet potatoes wafted through the rooms.   Verdict:  sump’n sump’n “outside line”   “Power Company” “they will be right here” as he called it in.

And they were, with the verdict that they’d put us on their schedule for today.  So, as he had checked and metered and called, we asked him twice to sit and eat with us, but he’d already eaten, so we wavered.   You can't just SIT DOWN TO THANKSGIVING with another person in the house, even though they've declined, and are working, can you?  It just seem so not right, somehow. And we'd waited DAYS to have the special time together.  So when he left almost three hours after our scheduled mid-afternoon repast, we got out all the hot dishes and Caro quickly cooked the broccoli, Sweetpea grabbed her little page of History of Thanksgiving in Color and Prose to read to us after the Blessing, and we sat down.

And even with all the delay and chafing at the probably-dried-out everything, the meal was absolutely perfect.   The dressing was moist and delicious inside its lovely golden top and bottom crust, the sweet potatoes sweet and rich, with the marshmallows gently melted atop, the pineapple casserole still creamy beneath the Ritz-crumbs-fried-in-butter topping, and the TURKEY---oh that Turkey---simply delicious and tender and moist and still nice and warm, through some magical alchemy of prayer and hope and gritted teeth at all the delays.   It was the weirdest, nicest thing---the wait seemed to have created some sort of strange bubble of peace and perfection after we sat down, and everything seemed even to taste better than usual.

The sublime Pecan-Wood-Smoked Turkey:

 

Dressing:

Caro’s stir-fry/steamed Broccoli in Mother's Vegetable-Bowl-to-match-her-china:

Sweet Potato Custard:

Gravy with boiled eggs:

Pineapple Casserole, sweet little nuggets in a rich cheese sauce with Butter-sizzled Ritz crumbs atop:

Devilled eggs, before the compote of Cranberry was set into place. Actually the plates were half-served when Chris mentioned it, and I heard a little whisper of “It’s probably in the Microwave,” (family joke about the One Missed Thing), as I got it out of the fridge.

Sweetpea’s Mama’s wonderful Pink Salad:

Dessert was a fabulous, moist Pumpkin Roulade with a Ginger cream cheese filling, a gift made by a friend of Caro’s.

What a day, memorable in all sorts of ways, and you certainly deserve a big Turkey Sandwich, with all the trimmings, if you’re still here.