Post #14 – Women’s Memoir Writing, ScrapMoirs – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnet
By Patricia McEwin Smith
“Topsy,” my mother calls.
Our lazy, black cocker spaniel comes at a trot, toenails skidding on the hardwood floor, as she rounds the corner to the kitchen. Topsy’s twitching nose has told her that a plump turkey liver is about to drop into her bowl on the floor. So begins the day. My dad never cooks except when we go camping or when he barbeques a chicken or occasional steak on the patio behind our house. That is until Thanksgiving. In the 1950s, at our modest Northern California home, Thanksgiving dinner preparation is a family affair.
My mother works for several days cleaning house, never her favorite chore, and sprinkling and ironing the large, embroidered, ecru linen tablecloth and napkins that had been her mother’s. She carefully unwraps the special dishes decorated with autumn leaves and gold rims around the plates and cups. They were her mother’s wedding china. I still have the dishes and when I use the fragile cups and salad plates, I always remember Thanksgiving dinners of my childhood.
It seems like only yesterday that she clamped the food grinder to the edge of the kitchen table to make fresh cranberry sauce. It’s my job to turn the crank as she feeds the whole cranberries and fresh orange wedges into the grinder making sure the bowl on the floor is well positioned to catch the dripping orange and red juices. I like to hear the popping sounds of the cranberries as they descend into the spiral throat of the old metal grinder. She doesn’t use a recipe, just stirs in sugar until the mixture is tangy sweet. For days after Thanksgiving, we’ll have sandwiches made of thin slices of white meat, mayonnaise and cranberry sauce.
The day before Thanksgiving mother washes the battered old turkey roaster, a large square metal affair that completely fills the oven. The roaster is actually the canner she uses to make apricot jam and sweet tomato chili sauce in the summertime. Because it has a tight fitting cover, she claims it produces an especially juicy bird. It will be years before we can get turkeys that have been injected with butter and basting broth.
On Thanksgiving morning, she lugs the fresh turkey out of the refrigerator and slides it into the sink. It’s my dad’s job to remove any remaining pin feathers. He uses pliers to ease out the feathers and is always impatient with his slow progress through this tedious task. For a few years, he tried using matches or candles to singe the feathers and hairs. The smell of burning feathers is a permanent holiday memory of mine. While he labors over the naked bird, my mother is busy with the best part, the stuffing.
Her recipe never varies. Mother’s Turkey Dressing was handed down from her mother Ida and probably from her mother’s mother, Grandma Carlson. It is my job to help cube the bread and stir the final mixture with a wooden spoon as my mother streams in melted butter. She uses margarine in all her cooking, but on Thanksgiving nothing less than real butter will do. She melts several cubes and pours the golden liquid in slowly while I stir the bread cubes, chopped celery, apples, onions and parsley. “Stir it up from the bottom, Patsy,” she always reminds me. She read a few years ago that sage is a good addition so she started adding a generous measure in the palm of her hand and that makes the warm dressing smell even better.
By now my dad has plucked the turkey smooth and rinsed and dried it with a dish towel. Holding the slippery bird steady with feet in the air is his challenge while my mother spoons in the fragrant dressing. Laced and trussed, the turkey gets a good rub of Crisco and more melted butter. Both Mom and Dad are needed to lift the bird into the roaster pan sitting on the lowest rack of the oven, fit on the cover and push the heavy rack in all the way so they can close the door.
All of this has to be done before we can have breakfast. “I’m not fixing lunch today,” she always warns, so we eat our fill of a hurried breakfast. Dinner in the late afternoon includes my aunt and uncle and their three daughters and often a few other relatives. This is why my mother always buys the biggest turkey that will fit into the roaster pan.
She sets a timer to remind her to call my dad to pull the turkey out of the oven so she can baste it with the sizzling drippings every hour or so. Half way through the roasting, she instructs my dad to turn the turkey over; a messy affair with spoons, forks, hot pads and sometimes a bit of cursing on his part. “Al, watch your language,” she says to my oblivious dad. At just the right time, she removes the cover so the skin will brown and crispy, but never burn.
My cousins, in neighboring Campbell, California, live near a high school and always walk to the Thanksgiving afternoon football game. The weather in our part of Northern California is usually crisp and sunny, but never too cold, so the whole town turns out. Our family doesn’t go to the game; we stay home and savor the roasting aromas and spitting sounds that fill the house.
My dad is responsible for peeling and mashing a huge bag of potatoes. My brother and I and our cousins dig into the mound of mashed potatoes that has a pool of butter melting on the top with a final dusting of paprika. We jostle to get the most butter with our spoonful of mashed potatoes. We eat a lot of butter on Thanksgiving.
Finally, the turkey is ready and my dad begins the carving.
Years later, in my own home, I recreate the rituals of Thanksgiving. My grandsons are learning to help. I don’t have the old roaster or metal grinder, but a food processor works fine and a Butterball Turkey, stuffed with Mother’s Turkey Dressing, of course, is perfect every time. Though we’re on a low cholesterol diet the rest of the year, we still eat a lot of butter on Thanksgiving.
MOTHER’S TURKEY DRESSING
1 loaf of bread, cubed (I use a combination of several types of
bread, even a few slices of raisin bread)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped apple
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1 cup melted butter
Toss together dry ingredients.
Season with 2 teaspoons poultry seasoning and salt and pepper.
Stir in butter.
Stuff into bird and roast.
Also good heated in a covered casserole until the onions and apples are cooked. Add a little broth if it seems dry
