In my mind, I’m sitting at a big table with all my family at Thanksgiving. There might be a couple of strangers there too, or neighbors who had no other particular place to be and would enjoy sharing the wealth of the holiday table.
My vision is of a tradition so strong that it would not be missed. It would be an event so looked forward to that a drive of a couple of hour’s time would not even be momentarily considered as a reason to miss it.
In my mind, it would be reminiscent of my grandmother’s house, the little place in Parsons, Kansas that seemed so big when we grandchildren were so small. The cousins are there. The aunts and uncles. And Aunt Katy, whose exact relationship to us isn’t clear although we know she is somehow kin by blood.
The gathering possesses the heartfelt camaraderie that is dealt in musical doses in that piano-driven theme from Cheers, where everybody knows your name. The sounds of her house were like a song, sweet music that swirled with the aroma of baking turkey.
Each Thanksgiving, I manage to remember one of my last visits to her house. I was still young enough, but recently married and standing with my wife in grandma’s kitchen. It occurred to me that those delicious handmade noodles she served were unlike any others I had enjoyed in my lifetime. It could have been the holiday nature of the presentation, but those noodles were tasty enough that I thought the recipe ought to be preserved.
Mostly, I wondered if maybe my wife could duplicate them. That would let me dig into a plateful more than once a year.
When Thanksgiving rolls around, at some point that mental image pops up, my grandmother explaining how the recipe was simple, just an egg-shell’s worth of water, a big half-bowl of flour. A pinch of salt. I took mental notes as she explained the process of mixing the ingredients, flattening it, rolling it out – even though her explanation was a little loose-edged.
There was nothing specific about it. No doubt, she’d learned the recipe from her own mother, Mrs. Stevenson, who had learned it from her mother, and her mother, continuing all the way back to the Appalachians and Ireland beyond. Measuring spoons weren’t to be found in those kitchens.
Once rolled and sliced and separated, she would uncoil the strips and hang them over some clothesline-like rod to dry out before cooking them in a chicken broth. In her hands, it was simple work. Those were the hands of experience.
She is the same grandmother who raised chickens earlier in her life and would pick one from the flock to serve up as Sunday dinner. It was preparation that required a lot more dedication to cooking than I possess – when step one of the directions says ‘take the chicken by the head and wring its neck,’ I’m out of that recipe.
We are seated around the table, all of us, and in my mental gathering I’m trying to keep my tendency to jabber-on in check, to listen to everyone else’s stories and enjoy the company. We’re a happy lot on Thanksgiving Day, glad to be together and forgetting for a short time the various life-troubles that may be nagging at us on any other day.
Happy Thanksgiving!
And the egg noodles are delicious.
