View from the Mountain

Turkey Tussles

I have eaten a lot of turkey in my life. Much of it has been cooked at home, some at friends' homes, and even more at feasts hosted by my relatives. I do not remember my mother cooking a turkey when I growing up in the fifties in our modest home in Lewisville, North Carolina. It was just the two of us living there so it made little sense to cook a turkey.  Holidays were always celebrated at my Aunt Molly's. Mother always cooked a ham (sometimes fried chicken) to take and the turkey or turkeys were there ready to eat when we arrived after the short drive to Yadkin County. I know Aunt Molly always cooked one and perhaps one of her daughters cooked another.

The first turkey that I remember being prepared in our house was cooked after we moved to the Mount Airy house with my dad. It was much more conducive to turkey feasts. That move happened in the fall of 1963 when I went away to military school. While we still attended the Yadkin County feasts, we now had feasts in our house at 347 West Pine Street.  While I was aware of the turkey cooking operation, I did not really participate. My indoor cooking duties were limited to cooking bacon and sometimes a few eggs.

Military/high school did not last forever and I went to college in Cambridge.  The first Thanksgiving at college, I did not come home but I got invited out by a college friend, Jack. We had a wonderful dinner and I got my one and only opportunity so far to sample stuffing with oysters.

The next memorable Thanksgiving happened after college. I had purchased an old farmhouse with a barn and 140 acres on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. Four of us had spent months remodeling the two-hundred year old house with hand-hewed beams. College friends came up to celebrate that first Thanksgiving on our own in the fall of 1971. We bought the biggest turkey we could find and the ladies in the group figured out how to cook it. I do not remember if they consulted Joy of Cooking or they had learned in their home kitchens. The turkey was near perfect even if it took longer than estimated.  It was a wonderful meal with only some minor discussion about celery in the stuffing and pie crusts.

The next Thanksgiving, I cooked a turkey for the couple of us that were still living at the house. It turned out fine in spite of my not knowing to take the little package out of the turkey's cavity.  At least I got it done on time which was better than the one that we had to cook the previous Christmas in a wood stove because the electric stove went on the fritz.

Fortunately for my turkey cooking future, I got married to a wonderful Southern girl in the summer of 1973 just in time for the next Thanksgiving.  Once again I bought the biggest turkey I could find. My wife, Glenda, who was new to turkey cooking managed to wrestle it into the oven. Even then there were hints that the days of the big turkey were numbered.

We eventually uprooted ourselves from Nova Scotia and moved to a farm in New Brunswick. We continued to have turkey on special occasions like Thanksgiving.  Turkey is not the cheapest meat in Canada so there was one Thanksgiving we thought about having a beef roast instead because cash was pretty short and in those days grocery stores did not take credit cards. We were raising cattle so we had plenty of beef.

Once we moved back to the states, we were in the land of cheap turkeys. By then Glenda was an expert if somewhat reluctant turkey cook. After we moved to Roanoke, Virginia, she set down a rule that there would be no turkeys in her oven larger than sixteen pounds.  The last time I remember winning the battle for a larger turkey was Thanksgiving 2005.  It was significant enough that I wrote this post, I Win a Turkey Battle.

It was a fleeting victory. Not many years afterwards, we did a Thanksgiving with our children but not at our house. This Thanksgiving away from home certainly hastened our turkey changes. Our turkey became a turkey breast and I think most of the ones that we have had since then have been turkey breasts. Only a few times did Glenda fall victim to the lure of whole turkeys priced at twenty-eight cents a pound.  I did manage to get a couple of turkey thighs cooked with the breast one year, but I have learned to like turkey breast while still hoping for some dark meat.

We will hang on to our turkey traditions while now include a turkey breast and all the fixings. For Thanksgiving 2021 we already have a turkey breast in the freezer. It is a nice large one. There was a sliver of hope when I took Glenda to the opening of the Clemmons Aldi.  They had whole Butterball turkeys at eighty-seven cents a pound. Most were over twenty pounds.  Glenda didn't even slow at the turkey counter. Time to start looking for a deal on turkey thighs once again.

 

 

The better angels among us

These are not normal times for any of us. If you are older, you possibly feel isolated. Issues that are minor during normal times sometimes seem impossible to solve during this crisis. Our lives almost feel like they are on hold but you take things one day at a time while hoping and praying that things will get better sooner rather than later. It can be hard because the news is nearly uniformly bad.

It is during those times that small kindnesses can make a huge difference.  Not long ago, I had mentioned on Facebook that Marmite, my favorite breakfast spread, was in short supply. I did not think anyone noticed except to make comments about how yucky they found the taste of Marmite.

On Friday, a jar of Marmite showed up in the mail.  My wife thought that I had ordered it.  Then she happened to notice that it had come from a former roommate of our oldest daughter.  We were amazed that she would take the time from her busy life to shop for Marmite and then make the effort to send it to me.

It really touched us that someone living in Northern Virginia with plenty on her own plate would think of us at a time like this. She is certainly one of those better angels among us. We have known her for years.  I still remember when she and our daughter showed up close to the end of their college years with her white sofa she wanted us to keep in our Roanoke house until she had a place for it.

The two of them went job hunting together after graduating from Sweet Briar. I also remember a story of her having to straighten out a clerk at the Hyatt where I had given them some Hyatt points for their stay.  We have enjoyed watching her life as it has unfolded including seeing her children grow up and one of them learn to drive. I am happy that my daughter often spends time with her. That they share their lives speaks volumes about the kind of women that they have become and the relationship they built during college. I know Sweet Briar helped with that.

This started me thinking about whom I could surprise and help. Fortunately, our oldest daughter, the friend of our better angel and also one of those better angels, had already seeded the idea when she made some masks and shipped them to us.

Last night I talked to a good friend from Canada. She told me that their garden was decimated by a late frost in June. It was one of the worst that she could remember.  They lost all their corn, their potatoes turned black, and many of their tomatoes didn't make it. She said the frost was on top of thirteen inches of snow followed by another snow in mid-May. Their weather has stayed, cold, dry and windy so even the outside is unpleasant. She went to tell me about being worried about shopping. She is a few years older than us and in her mid-seventies. She said she would wear a mask but she had been unable to find one and her sewing machine was broken.

It is easy to retreat with your four walls and just hope for the best. Even things like gardening that often give us pleasure can disappoint at times when we need it most.

Because of my gift of Marmite, I am going to try to find a way to send some masks to my friend. The inspiration has come from two Sweet Briar ladies.

Maybe a gift of a few masks will make our friend in Canada know that she and her husband are not alone. 

The bands of real friendship cannot be dissolved even by something as awful as the coronavirus. It might just make them stronger.