In a fit of insanity, I offered to have Thanksgiving at my house this year. It makes sense in a way; after all I have the biggest house in the family. We can spread out here, because there is still Covid to think of, and I have this enormous dining table and enough chairs to go around. My second bathroom should be finished and usable by then. And I think I can distract some of the people from the messiness with the renovations to the house, at least for a little while.
The problem is, my cooking skills are a little on the erratic side. And I have never in my life baked a whole turkey. I announced my intentions to my lunch crew one day, drawing some incredulous looks. I got all kinds of advice about pop out timers, cooking bags, stuffing fruit and onions into the turkey and to be sure to remove the little bag of unrecognizable turkey parts before cooking the bird itself. Finally one person said, “You need to have a backup plan.” I didn’t have the courage to tell them I’m thinking about tackling my mom’s famous yeast rolls if I can borrow or steal a large mixer with a dough hook. I have a feeling they might call the men with the white coats and have me hauled away.
My friend Alice was inspired to tell the story, for the hundredth time, of the period of time when my oven was not working and I stored my Christmas decorations in it for a couple of years. To be accurate, it was more Christmas dishes and kitchen items than actual decorations, but I guess there’s not much difference. The need to make Christmas cookies is actually what finally led to repair of the oven.
I have never exactly liked to cook. Every now and then I would read some book or magazine article or watch some Hallmark movie and think I should hone my culinary skills. These thoughts led to some disasters, usually resulting in throwing something in the trash can. Like the waffle iron, covered in dried waffle batter, or a rolling pin draped with sticky cookie dough. Some things I know better than to even tackle, like any recipe that is more than one page, or that has words I can’t pronounce, or that says to knead the dough or drop something in a glass of water to see if it makes a ball. Has anyone ever dropped anything in a glass of water that made a ball? My grandmother could, but the gene for that ability skipped me. One of the great disappointments of my life was when I decided to make baked beans from scratch. It took several days. I had to buy the dried beans, soak the dried beans and cook them for what seemed like forever. I added the seasonings and baked them for the final step. When I tasted the finished product, I realized that I had Bush’s baked beans, and inferior to boot.
As Alice also pointed out, my move into my ancestral home seems to have been a catalyst for me to tackle more cooking than I have ever done in my life. The only explanation I can come up with is that some ghosts who live here thought it would be a good joke to try to turn me into Paula Deen or the Pioneer Woman. Or maybe it’s because I have this great kitchen window, just made for gazing out of while stirring up something good to eat.
Some things went pretty well – I finally got fairly proficient at fried green tomatoes, I can cook a pretty good roast and make my own spaghetti creation and some great taco soup. (The taco soup probably doesn’t count because it mainly consists of opening a bunch of cans of stuff and dumping it all in the crock pot together.) I can also make a mean pan of apple dumplings, a recipe that calls for enough butter and sugar to cover up most any mishap. But I can have some spectacular missteps too. I under-cooked some peas a couple of weeks ago that the dog wouldn’t even touch and burned up a mess of green beans that I was really looking forward to. I used the wrong kind of flour in a batch of cookies, and I made some soup that turned into something more like a casserole with mushy rice. Last year, during the holidays, I had the urge to make Amish friendship bread for all my friends. The bread turned out great, but my kitchen was soon running over with bowls of starter, and I was making daily trips to the store for more flour and sugar. I figured out I could have bought everyone a diamond bracelet from what I spent on groceries. I also gained about 20 pounds from the excess bread. This year I’m going to make cookies. At least when you finish baking them you are finished with them.
Now I have to figure out what size turkey I need to buy. I wonder if one of my ancestral ghosts would help me out with that?
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