Gobble, gobble

Whew. With the dishes done several times over, cousins out the door at 5 am today to catch a flight, and leftovers nearly gone, I'm just about done with the turkey holiday...what a glorious time! I cooked for 15 people, children outnumbering adults by a hair.  We had an afternoon of exactly what Thanksgiving is meant to be--warmth, yummy food, reflection, cooperation, tradition, and love.  I spent several days staging the meal preparation so that I could enjoy my guests.  Inevitably there were some last minute crises that derailed my plan (such as the crying, under-napped, excited 19 month old)...but it was still good.  The fact that I would even dream of cooking a meal of this size and caliber is no small feat;  in fact, it has been many, many years in the making.

One of the gifts of children and living in the boonies is that it has stimulated me to learn how to cook.  As a child, food was fine and all.  I liked Oreos and Happy Meals.  No offense to my beloved mom, but dinner was more convenient than inspired.  She's going to read this and agree--I mean, there were four kids and a lot going on--and that was the mode of the day for the 1970's do-it-all woman.  My dad loved to cook (and was good at it) but this was a special event.  In my adolescence, I tightly controlled my food intake to have a sense of control over something in my life (read: eating disorder).  In college, living alone and being a vegetarian, I lived in Atkin's Hell on pasta and bagels.  Cooking for one, or occasionally two, is tricky and for someone wholly focused on school, well, eating was really just an inconvenience.  I dreamed of and actually think that I told someone that I'd rather eat a Jetson's-like nutrition pill and just be done with it so I had more time to study and work and do other important things.

I also was somehow miraculously surrounded by nurturing folk who did in fact love to cook (hmmm....coincidence?).  A particular friend who went on to become a professional chef fed me well for some time.  She was also a vegetarian but had the imagination and stimulation to actually look at recipes.  She made things like asparagus soup;  they were good.  I don't want to give the impression that I only ate white trash junk food...I could definitely appreciate more gourmet fare such as wild mushrooms and coq au vin (pre-veggie days).  I just had a sweet tooth and when you don't eat much, you get a lot of bang for your skimpy student income buck from a Reese's.  There was another dear family that fed me regularly through my 20's.  The mom was a phenomenal cook and had worked as a caterer in a previous life.  She could effortlessly put together a light and yummy, nourishing feast that we would consume in their garden, which she'd also nurtured to glorious fruition.  That family provided me with a lot of love and company.  These times were my first hint of a clue at the communal meaning of food and meals.  I hope that somehow, somewhere I have been able to return the favor to both of these folks.

In my late 20's I finished my training and entered my "Real Life."  I joined a practice and moved, with my boyfriend (now husband), into a home we purchased.  It's a remote location--rural and bordering on only a town-size locale.  Kinda out there.  We can't just run down the road to get take out or quick groceries.  In the first couple of years here, establishing my professional self, I worked very, very long hours and did a lot of call nights.  Still not so much time for cooking.  My guy got terribly tired of pasta, but at 8pm after a full day, that's about all you can muster.  It's funny, I never seemed to tire of it--I could eat the same thing every day, it was so low on my priority list. 

After we married and I immediately got pregnant--that's when the food relationship changed.  I was physically unable to cook at first with my nausea and exhaustion.  Then, I became ravenous for meat.  Then, I suddenly really, really cared about what I ate and passed along to my baby.  It wasn't immediate, but as I transformed into a mother, I learned to care about the world in a way that I'd only thought I'd understood before.  I'd always considered myself "an environmentalist" but when the possibility of my child suffering the consequences of my generation's missteps became real, I cared in an entirely different way.  I finally felt like I was part of the fabric of humanity.  I had thrown my genetic chips onto the table and was ready to really play.

Over time, between wrestling with my role as a mother, physician and wife, I began to feel very strongly about how and what my family ate.  We joined our local CSA and would receive a bag full of surprise veggies every week for half of the year.  I had to learn how to cook with chard, kale and kohlrabi, and began to love the challenge.  I learned to appreciate the process of eating locally--eating what your local environment can appropriately support, and eating seasonally, eating things your neighbors have grown (not things shipped from New Zealand).  That is really how we humans are supposed to eat.  And who wants mealy, pale pink tomatoes in January, anyhow?  I experimented with varying amounts of meats in our diet (I'd found between pregnancy and nursing that my vegetarian days were over, at least for the moment).  In my hyper-organized way, I planned out meals on a weekly basis and shopped with a list that was organized into the order of the grocery store where I shop.  I would challenge myself with new recipes, I subscribed to various homemaker magazines with many recipes (again, seasonally inspired), and rarely would duplicate a meal for some weird reason. 

Over the past eight years, since weaving myself and my family into the local community, I've become proficient at cooking.  I never, ever thought that I would, and occasionally my husband will teasingly ask me what my friends from past lives would think of me now (though with the magic of Facebook, I can figure it out pretty easily).  Just as sewing, knitting and other home crafts did not appeal to me, I viewed cooking in a purely utilitarian way and did not have time for it.  Then, as I grew a baby and fed it in utero and then from my very own milk, my relationship to food and nourishment changed entirely.  As I fed my children, I finally understood how people experience food as love--from day one, that is what a mother does, and that is one of our most basic human expressions of love and affection.  It grew to wanting to feed my extended family and our wonderful community of friends.  I was finally able to open myself to the incredible power of food--it connects us to one another, nourishing us both physically and soulfully.  And the joy of good food in the mouth is a wonder to behold.  Deliciousness experienced by our taste buds will quite literally change the chemistry in our brain.

This past week, I was delighted to cook for my husband's sister's family and some dear friends.  Proficient enough to not worry, experienced enough from Thanksgivings past that I could pick the recipes I knew and loved, organized enough to time the preparations, I got to make a meal that would fill my loved ones and our children.  I don't want to sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but I like the evolution of my relationship to food.  Maybe it's really just growing up.  We had a juicy roasted turkey (secret: brining) with local root vegetables, porcini mushroom, sausage and chestnut stuffing (locally collected and dried porcini), Big Martha's mashed potatoes (Ms. Stewart's mom's recipe, made with cream cheese), local green beans, home made crescent rolls, orange-cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and sweet potato pie.  Everyone but my sister-in-law, the baby and I went skiing for the day and we had plenty of time and space to cook.  At feast time, the kids played waiter and served the adults.  My son drew menus for everyone with their names and illustrations of the dinner.  The kids (all 8 of them) played together beautifully.  We said/sang 4 different versions of grace and/or blessing songs.  We went around the table and asked everyone what they were thankful for which was pure sweetness, then at the request of one four year old, we all said it together at the same time (my new favorite tradition).  After dinner, they played a modified cooperative team charades where they acted out something and all of the adults together guessed what they were (this was particularly hilarious and a great game for kids of varying ages). We didn't even turn on the TV--I saw no football.

My friend emailed me the following day and said that she felt "loved, adored, fed, comforted" by the holiday.  I could not have gotten a higher compliment.  Holidays, at their best, are opportunities for  tradition and rhythm that speak of creativity, enthusiasm for life and fun, as she told me.  I have also experienced Thanksgiving completely alone, searching for an cheap open restaurant (Thank God for The Frontier), serving the homeless donated food, working at the hospital, and with dysfunctional families.  I've had crazy and not fun times.  I much prefer this version, and hope to replay it again and again.  Thanks.