thanksgiving and my grandmother

Dys, (I don't much like ya as well) but...

My gramma is 87 and bitchin cuz she didn't get to make anything(she secretly did anyway). This is my first T-Day back in the Old Stompin Grounds, and I am tryin to make her feel like old times.

Times change, and God help me, I hope the gravy meets muster.

Happy Thanksgiving ya miserable old codger...

Wow. What a lovely story. It made me hungry.

Grandmothers are so cool. I miss mine a lot. I miss her potato candy and depression cake that she always made for the holidays.

I miss her tiny little self.

I still have a pair of her shoes. They look like little kid shoes.

<sigh>

Happy holiday to you and Dianne and Osso.

Nana raised me. As matriarch of the clan, she prepared Thanksgiving dinner
with the aid of her daughters. Hers are the Thanksgiving dinners against
which all others are measured. She's been gone since I was thirteen, but the
smell of homemade apple pie is all that is needed to summon her spirit.

I'll celebrate Thanksgiving this year in Canada, where it's already a month
too late.

We don't thank anybody, as we've been in Slovakia for a bloody long time and only Kelts were there before us and they fled who knows where...so... nemmind.

But Christmas dinner was always at my Grandmas. She made the russian potato salad and fried carp filets, and the lentil soup (for good luck) and sourkraut soup (for health) and poupachky (baked dumplings covered with heaps of crushed poppy seeds, poured over with hot milk, butter and sugar) and bobaly (peas with milk and flour and pepper) and her very own Stedrak (which means generous and generous it was, since it's Christmas - cake of three layers, the bast damn thing on this planet right after poupachky.)
Anyway, Christmas after Christmas we came - my parents and me and my sis. It was about a 40 minute walk, usually through snow, with sleigh that my dad would pull. The walk was my favorite part (among other favorite parts).
When I was a stubborn evil teenager (and good god, the puberty did a number on me), I refused to go. I said we should have 'our' Christmas. We did. That year after, my grandma died... so ultimately I refused to come to what would have been the very last Christmas with her. Bloody idiot.

I always use Thanksgiving to take stock of all the good things in life. None can top friendship and companionship. Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Her I am on the Cape with most of my family. I am thankful for that. I returned after 10 years living away - one of the better decisions in my lifetime. My grandma is gone now. She used to make the most wonderful desserts. I get my sweet tooth from her. She'd make little tiny one-bite pecan pies, baklava, sugar cookies, among other treats. I am also thankful that in her dementia, she was able to visit with long lost friends and relatives in her later days.

Thanksgiving was always my favorite and still is.


I hope I don't poison anyone on the morrow. Well, what the hell....



The odd thing is, dys' grandmother was one year older than my mother, same age as two of my aunts, and my grandmother was born in something like 1870..

and I'm a mere, uh, let's say two years older than the dys. Ok, maybe three. Diane is catching up with me, though.


My grandmother died in 1951 - if anyone has ever followed my strange childhood (oh, never mind, hard enough for me), that is when we landed in LA for a while, when I was in fourth grade.

In my memory, she looked more like I would now guess as ninety something.. purple crepe dress, hat with veil.... I loved her. She was a saint, but that is another story for another time.




Some recent good - I've had some serious/excellent talks online with one cousin, feel newly reconnected.

Rock: my ex, the better cook by far - with natural instincts for whole menus with flavors all making sense - but hey, I was more adventurous...
anyway, he never added flour for gravy, but a tablespoon or two of cognac and a slight simmer..

One of these days I'll try both gravy ways.

Didn't mean to skip over your post, littleK. Precious time for you with your grandma.

No worries, Osso!

Osso, I'm a corn starch guy, but cognac has it's points...

LittleK, get it while the gettin's good.

Happy Thanksgiving all, and get some sleep. (I've got another hour, and then up again early to put the turkey in....

We can argue about cornstarch tomorrow...

g'day, all.

Hey dys, Diane, and osso. Picture me at the table with ya. Stuffing my face. Wish I could be there.

My maternal grandmother was a large woman and an amazing cook. The only difference between Thanksgiving and every other dinner at her place was the turkey. (Prepared divinely.)(Chicken soup and chopped liver for starters.) And she had a window facing the front, so I got to watch the mini-parade that wended its way down the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.

In the same building on the same floor lived my paternal grandmother. (Apartment to the back.) A teeny tiny woman who was also a superb cook. She died when I was a child, but I do remember that one supoib Thanksgiving.

My mother's sister lived in the same building on the ground floor (facing the back.) She was a brilliant cook. Served a ham one Thanksgiving. My grandmother wouldn't eat. Although it tasted great, I missed the toikey.

In the same apartment as my paternal grandmother was my father's sister. Not such a great cook. Hey, they can't all be wonderful.

Thanks for stirring up family memories.

Enjoy the holiday.

Happy T-Day to you as well Ms. Roberta...

Sounds like a Woody Allen kinda building.

May all your white meat be juicy

RH

You shouldn't know from it.

Hope you enjoy your day and boid, too, rockhead.

You're welcome to vicariously join in if it turns out ok, Robbie.

It'll be a quiet day. One or more of the parties may be asleep, or watching a movie I plan to bring. We're in a rest phase here. As I used to say routinely, as I cooked, we can always go to McDonald's. (There was one at the end of our street, back in Venice).

Now, what, I guess there is a mini Wendy's over on Coors.

I bet the potatoes turn out ok, Roberta, so do you like them with or without garlic?

Either way is fine with me, osso. But garlic is always a little better.

Kibitzing.