A THANKSGIVING MISHAP, ONE FOR THE BOOKS

 It’s been almost a decade since I first hosted Thanksgiving. That summer I had moved into my first house in Revere and I wanted to carry on the tradition that my grandmother had carried on ever since my father came to America in the early 70s. My grandmother, of course, was going to be a guest and I was following her recipe for turkey and, especially, the stuffing…or so I thought. 

Thanksgivings at my grandparents’ apartment were always joyous occasions and the very compactness of the quarters were my grandparents lived aided in drawing everyone, my sister and I, my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins, closer.  We drowned out the noise of the Macy’s parade my grandparents would have playing on their rabbit-eared TV and not the other way around. And in true Italian fashion it wasn’t just turkey. A full course of spaghetti and assorted meats in sauce had come and gone by the time the stuffed bird arrived. 

And this was no ordinary turkey. My grandmother always bought it from my uncle’s meat market in the North End and would serve it laced with bacon strips and the stuffing that I looked forward to year-round. There was enough of it to stuff the turkey but there was stuffing to spare, usually molded into a loaf. How to describe it? Rice flour with ground beef that sliced like bread. It made the turkey. Then there would be roast beef and potatoes for dinner, followed by my aunt’s homemade apple pie and coffee. 

I knew I couldn’t do all that. By the time my turn came to host most of the family members that were came to my grandmother’s feast had moved out of state, passed away or started their own families. But I had to get the turkey right and, more so, that unique stuffing. The magic of that stuffing had to be recaptured, it was the cornerstone of Thanksgiving as I knew it. When we were collecting leftovers to take home each year I didn’t care for anything else one way or the other so long as my parents took an ample supply of that stuffing. My grandmother, when I called her and told her what I would be making, offered to help. I had to decline as I wanted my first time hosting to be my own great achievement emulating the Thanksgiving dinner I had cherished all my life. Little did I know how sorely I would regret not getting help from her. 

My first thing, I went to my family’s meat market in the North End to buy the turkey. Now, understand that each year I had always seen the turkey already prepared and in the oven by the time we arrived at my grandparents’ place. Why wouldn’t I assume the stuffing came with the turkey?

It is hard to describe my disappointment when I found the turkey empty, the gaping hole waiting for a stuffing I thought would be there. It was crushing, disappointing but also depraving, I wanted that stuffing. This was Thanksgiving morning, the guests were coming within a few hours and I had to have the turkey well on its way. I put it in the oven but my motivation was gone. It would be what it was. 

When my grandmother arrived I explained to her why there would be no stuffing and, trust the voice of experience, it takes unparalleled courage to explain a mess-up to an old-school Italian grandmother, especially cooking mess-ups. But, she was right. Why would they put anything edible in raw poultry? And yes, had I told her my plan she would have made the stuffing and brought it over. In short, I made the plainest turkey in my family’s history. Everyone ate it and gave no criticism and I appreciated the charitable blindness.

But here’s the thing, Thanksgiving dinners come and go but it the memories built around them that remain and, for its very uniqueness, that Thanksgiving has joined the annals of holiday memories for me. As it turns out, it would be the last Thanksgiving my grandmother would spend with us (she passed away three years later) and I’m glad that she saw me at least attempt to pass down the tradition she adopted when she first came to this country almost forty years earlier, even though she never let go of her displeasure of seeing a man in the kitchen. My one lingering regret, now knowing she made that stuffing from scratch, I wish I had gotten the recipe from her before she took it to the grave, she played a Col. Sanders on me with that recipe and with her there isn’t even a legend of a secret vault. But I will soon try making that enigmatic stuffing once more with guesswork. I just have to. For any doubts along the way I can be grateful for the memory of my stern old grandmother’s reproaches.