Attack of the pie brigade

Thanksgiving goes from one extreem to another. There might be 35 people or just one. All you need is a semblence of a meal eaten with appreciation.

In 2007 and 2008, my mom and I broke with tradition and went to a local diner for our meal. This year my cousin who had moved to PA has moved back here, and one of my mothers sisters has moved back from Florida. My cousin's sons and their families were not visiting this year. (One is overseas, the other is on the West Coast.) So it was a small crowd and a meal featuring some high fat but really delicious food. Our gathering including five actual relatives and three folks the cousins invited who are not relatives. One of them is Chef Johnny who deboned the bird and stuffed it with chestnut sausage stuffing. My cousin's husband basted it with brandy and cooked it on a grill outside. Oh my. Chef Johnny spiced up mashed sweet potatoes and doused green-beans with almonds and amaretto.  My family always fears there will not be enough, and so there is always WAY too much. When one is trying to avoid cholesterol  - it seems almost an assault to sit with a mousse pie to your left, cream pie to your right, etc etc. The following video is an account of dessert.

Thanksgiving feast at Elmer's Diner - AAA+

I started this post but it was really hard to write considering a friend had died on Monday afternoon. So finally a week later I am posting it on its original date.....

My family on my mom's side always had a big gathering on Thanksgiving. For me, thanksgiving used to mean driving a half hour or more to a crowded busy place full of a dozen warm gabby relatives. Aunt Pearl always cooked a giant bird, the kitchen would humm with activity, the table was stocked with tons of food, 8 different impossible-to-resist desserts, a long day of eating and talking and family opinions. Often rapid fire conversation, feeling too full, and being sickishly on the verge of a headache.

Over the years most have moved far away or died. Mom says she doesn't want to travel on a holiday weekend, nor does she want to be invited to well-meaning friends family dinners. She doesn't want to cook nor eat MY cooking.. (No one could blame her for that...)

SO - Last year we went to a new diner in town - Elmer's. (There is a long post on this blog about it...) This year, despite invites from relatives in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, we went to Elmer's again. Except we decided we would have what we wanted instead of the requisite Turkey Dinner that we were supposed to eat. So mom had salmon and I had a chicken & mushroom dish made with my favorite wine Merlot. The food was great and we didn't have to do the dishes!

The staff is very friendly at Elmer's and we were very well attended. Our waitress even ran outside after the meal because mom had left her hat in the booth.

So then, after, we went to the brand new dollar store open for the first time that day. A mom bought a few bargains, then set her money down on the moving belt in this brand new store and the bill slipped between the belt and the counter and disapeared leaving everyone gasping and full of consternation. They were very nice and polite and sent mom off with her change. After I got her situated in the car, I went back and they were taking the panel to the counter off and a man reached his hand up and over something there and retrieved the bill. WHEW!

Too much excitement!

Thankful? Yup! Thankful the diner was open!!!

For the very first time this year, my mother and I celebrated our Thanksgiving in a diner. Not a fancy restaurant but a simple humble diner.

She is almost 80 now and has never once eaten out on Thanksgiving - until this year. In the old days sometimes there were 30 people from Mom's side of the family who arrived for this holiday meal at her sister Pearl's house. Later it was  her daughter, my cousin Linda who made the meal.

Things change though. Some relatives moved, died, grew up, became estranged. My father died in 1984. In the last few years, Thanksgiving has been smaller. With a cousin or two and their children, either been at mom's, or at my cousin Denise's house near Hartford.

This year, Denise went to see her grand-babies in PA, with whom she is utterly obsessed. Their mom is prego again and sickish, not fit to travel. Dense and her husband passed through yesterday on their way to the grandbaby palace. They stopped here for lunch. we had ham and cheese and bagels. But that left Mom and I all on our own for THE meal on Thursday.

Somethings never change - nobody ever suggests that I cook anything. (Prudent choice...) So, today we went to Elmer's Dinner. She had the turkey special with cream of Turkey soup, I had the turkey special with a salad. It came with mashed potatoes, apple stuffing, candied yams, greenbeans and carrots, coffee, and pudding. They cooked it and took away the dirty dishes.

When we eat with the family there are six or seven deserts, and left-overs for weeks - months if you count the freezer! Thanksgiving is normally a caloric high-fat disaster. NOT THIS YEAR. We had a successfully moderate day foodwise. We didn't eat the potatoes, scrapped off the gravy. I did enjoy the apple stuffing and the pudding. The salad was great too. The Turkey was tender and hot and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

In the parking lot on our way out, we passed a family arriving for their meal - a middle-aged husband and wife, a wild ten-year old child, and an elderly couple. The older gent was a bit wobbly, grey-headed and all dapper in a black and white modern art sweater and sun glasses, but his wife looked out of it, and was maneuvered deftly into a wheel chair. Life does have its necessities. So today, I am thankful for diners.