Monthly Archives: November 2011

It’s all around us. A fraternity buddy (yes, I will be inducted into that fraternity by the time I’m 80) died last week. A high school friend’s mom died this week and it reminds me of losing my mother three years ago.

Life is precious and what better way to celebrate it than food. I think I was always drawn to food to make people happy and enjoy life. Even death is celebrated with food, and what could be a better send-off?

At my funeral, no I don’t want one, but if I did people would have an Irish wake with booze and great music, fiddlers and pipers and bagpipes, of course. Amazing Grace at the end.  Cheery Irish/Scot tunes throughout.

My husband’s family would reel from it but it’s my funeral, if I had one. I’d rather get permission to have my ashes buried in my favorite Enchanted Forest with no marker, just the knowledge that I was home.

It always strikes me when high school or college friends die, as we’re at the point where normally we have children who’ve graduated, married and are having our grandchildren. We’re not supposed to have cancer and die before our parents.

My mom died three years ago, she’s still in my address book and sometimes I want to just call her to ask for a recipe. She introduced me to food, I was struck at age eight and never turned back. Our life was coming home to holiday dinners and prepping food. We talked food, prepped and cooked and finally ate food and it was different every time.

The last time she got out of the hospital, I flew in and cooked for her. She needed to gain weight and and was on an IV system plus she needed three meals a day. I made buckets of chicken stock. Bought her a V-8 (and me a Diet Coke and newspaper) every morning. Ran saline through the line before disconnecting then made her breakfast, lunch and dinner. Months later, one sister told me she said, “but Dee made the chicken stock from scratch.”

Food is life, perhaps life is food. Oh, at my non-funeral I want latkes with Nova and creme fraiche with cranberry juice, a gorgeous brisket and ribs from Uncle Bobby’s rig, Margie’s potato rolls. Sisters can make Viennese Chocolate Torte and Tri-Level Brownies, brother will have to learn Zwiebelrostbraten (onion pot roast) and breuchen (breakfast rolls) as well as finding weistwurst (veal sausage) and making rosti (pan-fried potato cake). Oh, Kevin also has to make me Lamb Robert (he calls it “Sheep Bob”), his favorite dish.

Magically lebkuchen will appear from Switzerland, along with mincemeat tarts, trifle, Scandinavian cookies, apple shortbreads and the long-lost recipe for mountain-high oatmeal raisin cookies will re-appear. And I won’t have any of it? That stinks.

I may just stay alive and make all these things! Wishing you life, love and Happy Thanksgiving! Dee

We’re preparing to go to Texas and see Jim’s Nanny, parents and nearly 60 others for Thanksgiving. My first initiation was in 2002. I was used to having Thanksgiving with my family, my immediate family.

The C’s were at least 50 at the time and Jim wanted me to meet them. We’d been dating for a year and he’d already met my parents. So we showed up at the airport and his father gave me two dozen red roses. How sweet. It was a tense drive home because Jim had never really told them anything about me and all of a sudden he shows up with a girl.

Nanny had a dining room table chat with me, and told me basically that she wanted her grandson to work for a company for 50 years and get a gold watch. She wanted me to assure her that would happen. I said no, her grandson is not that kind of person and this is not the world we live in today. It must have gone well because I call her Nanny and she just sent me a birthday card to a granddaughter.

They knew it was serious and his mother grilled me for five days not about me, but about how difficult Jim is to live with!  He’s methodical, normal engineer traits. I know, I said.

Thanksgiving was lovely but I was the raw meat at the table to be questioned, vetted. Jim left me alone with his family for nearly 12 hours. He says he looked into rooms from behind and thought I was doing well but did not check in.

In the meantime his cousins, who I love dearly, got in there and tried to find out whether I’d follow him if he got a job in Texas. I said that depended on what my last name was at the time. We had already settled on getting married, but needed to meet family to make sure all was OK. And while that was a joke, I did end up taking his last name because it meant so much to him.

Very few women have come into this family over the past two generations. Being subjected to the C family Thanksgiving alone is a daunting prospect. I know, because I was an object of interest and everyone wanted to ask me questions.

The last of the older and younger generation got another “fresh meat” into the fray one year and I took her under my wing, at least made her feel safe and comfortable and know that she had someone to turn to if she was unsure of the conversation.

Nanny runs great parties, that last for hours, but it’s tough for newbies. After the “initiation” we both passed, in different years and now it’s guys eat and watch football, gals cook and clean up. The minute I became a Mrs. C no males talked to me, I was just part of the cleanup crew.

Let me tell you something, guys, we host a party in the kitchen (no alcohol, it’s a dry county) that is more fun than even the Aggies’ game. Since there are so many sweets in dinner and the plethora of desserts I do snacks that stay on the kitchen table all day and that’s the place to be, when festivities start in the morning and go until 6-7 at night. One might say I’ve found my place. Teaching kids cooking has helped as well. I love this family and am privileged to have found a place in it.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, Dee