I sincerely believe that spending as much as I do on one Thanksgiving meal is totally stupid, but I still do it every year as a gift to my family.
I plan for a week, search recipes, get a two-page shopping list together, and hit the store. I come home with my car loaded down and store the stuff in an extra room. Then on Monday before Thanksgiving, I start cooking.
This year I had several “firsts”. Instead of cooking my own turkey, I had a dear friend deep fry it. He is a genius with fried turkeys, so I was confident about that “first”.
Another “first” was cooking my dressing in a crock pot. I was highly dubious, but I read where this could be done, and since I needed my oven for other baking, I mixed all the dry ingredients and refrigerated it. Let’s face it, making dressing/stuffing is a pain. I bake two kinds of cornbread, sweet and white, and mix it all together. Then I add seasoning, including sauteed onions and celery. The next day I added the wet ingredients, then I put it in the crock pot and let it go. It takes two days to make, but it turned out better than I could have ever dreamed.
The last “first” was a Pecan Pie Cake. This was a bundt recipe that called for pecans and caramel in the bottom of the bundt pan with a batter on top. As it baked, I dared anyone to walk through the kitchen and make my cake fall.
Anyway, several hours later, the cake was ready to turn over and for me to lift the pan. I stood there in fear and trembling, worried that the entire thing would fall apart when I lifted it out of the pan. But as I turned the pan over and lifted it, what lay beneath was unbelievable…it was GORGEOUS! It was a cake that would have made Julia Childs proud and Martha Stewart green with envy! It was perfect!
As I prepared the rest of the meal and watched as the green bean casserole came out of the oven looking wonderful, I then turned my attention to my sweet potato casserole, with the brown sugar and pecan topping. I worried that it was undercooked, but when it came out, it looked amazing.
Okay, something was definitely wrong here. There was no catastrophe. What had happened to my usual mishaps? Where was my rotten luck? When was disaster going to strike? NOW I was really worried.
Well, everyone wolfed down their meal and praised the cook. I was just happy that they were all happy.
Then came the best part…I set the cake down in front of everyone and heard them all ooh and ahh at the glory of the cake! And to make it even better, I asked my daughter-in-law to get the surprise pumpkin cheesecake out of the refrigerator along with the whip cream.
It was at that moment that my daughter-in-law walked up holding a large bowl.
“Um, I think you forgot to serve the broccoli salad,” she said.
….and there it was…my epic disaster.
I had worked all morning to make that thing and then forgot to serve it. It sat there unappreciated on the table as we all stared at it frowning. We were too full to eat it; in fact, it looked rather nauseating.
So we finished our dessert and left the table. A few hours later, the same routine began as it does every year: my oldest son sneaks dressing on a plate and hides it in a certain area of the fridge, my daughter-in-law grabs a plate and sneaks the rest of the sweet potato casserole to hide in another area in the fridge, my other son sneaks a turkey leg in a ziplock bag and hides it in the fridge, and my other daughter-in-law sneaks a huge piece of cake in tin foil and crams it in her purse.
They all think I don’t know this. And later that evening when they wanted leftovers for dinner, there was the usual fight over what happened to the leftover food. But this year I placated everyone by laying out the broccoli salad…which they attacked like ravenous hyenas.
The next day when my son and daughter-in-law were wanting to snack on broccoli salad, in walked my husband smacking his lips and licking his fork with the last of the salad. He just stared at everyone and grinned as they groaned.
“I’m sorry,” he said innocently. “Were you all wanting some?”
