Grandmother’s china
It was a different kind of Thanksgiving. We haven’t hosted Thanksgiving dinner for awhile now. Sister Loraine has more room for everything — cooking, sitting, and places for kids to get away from boring adults (or is that vice versa?) — and she’s hosted for the past several years. This year she had to work, though, so I volunteered to bring the gathering back to our house, even though building a bedroom in the basement a few years ago cut down our space pretty significantly.
But this year, not only did we not have the five Fraziers at dinner, we also missed the Servis family. Lauren’s high school band (she’s assistant drum major, remember) marched in the Detroit Thanksgiving Day parade, which kept Margie, Matt and family at home in Monroe over the long weekend. Viraldos were fewer, too, since Nancy’s eldest, Jake, his wife and (now) two kids live in California. Her second son, Joe, would be visiting with his wife’s family. Newly married Jeff would be on hand, but his wife had to work.
With only 15 then to seat and feed instead of the 25 or so of the past, I thought we could manage the crowd. I inherited two sets of china from my dad’s mother — service for 12, complete with all serving dishes, and service for 6. I also have her beautiful etched stemware. We for some reason have plenty of tables and chairs around here. Flatware also seems never to be a problem. And over the years I’ve collected table linens that include probably 48 cloth napkins in your choice of either off-white or a rich copper-brown. My own collection of crystal candlesticks, votives, and bowls adds a little elegance to everything, and we end up with a nice ambiance for the annual gathering (in spite of the fact that we didn’t get the walls painted yet this year, carpets could use cleaning, and no amount of scrubbing can hide that fact that we need new flooring in the kitchen).
But enough on cosmetics, after the fun of gathering the family together, it’s really about the food, right? Well, not exactly. See, for the last couple of years our 20-something-year-old oven has not been a consistent performer ,which, all right, should have been one of my primary considerations in offering to roast a turkey in the first place, but I guess I was in denial. It was a good thing I started early (because food was ready an hour after I said it would be). And a good thing I roasted a whole turkey and a turkey breast (and that most of the people in the family prefer white meat). Because in the end the bird was underdone on the bottom and just about overdone at the top, which made for somewhat slim pickings in turkey meat overall. All I can say is thank god that Nance and my two mothers brought as many side dishes and desserts as they did, so everyone got enough to eat.
The best part of the day, of course, was finally sitting down to eat and taking some time to enjoy everyone’s company for a bit. But I can’t believe I forgot to get out my camera until it was over.
