On The Homefront: My Tofurkey Day
November 28, 2009 by Tara Tyrrell
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s right after my birthday, it’s naturally cheerful in a way that makes Christmas seem tacky and forced in comparison, and it’s always always always delicious. I’ve never been the kind of girl to pick daintily at a salad, or count carbs instead of grabbing life by the balls and eating that entire pizza. So naturally, Thanksgiving is a great day for me. You spend the whole day cooking, starving, salivating, cleaning dishes so you can reuse them to make yet another pile of delicious food, and finally sit down to a meal the size of a small third world country around 5:00. By 5:15, your barbaric gorging begins to slow, and by 5:21 you are absolutely useless. You take a two hour break to recharge, and by 7:42 you are on that pie like white on rice. Best holiday ever.
We do pre-Thanksgiving dinner snacks right.
Thanksgiving isn’t just about food, however. It’s also a time for your family to come over. And eat all your food. My Thanksgivings are usually pretty small. I’m an only child, and most of my family lives across the country. This year my dad’s parents and my uncle would be joining us for the food orgy. My grandparents got married when they were 19, and divorced about 5 years ago. They absolutely hated each other when they were together, but now they’re contemplating getting back together. It freaks us out. A lot. My uncle lives about an hour away, and is going through a difficult divorce. My dad and uncle are not necessarily best buddies. My grandfather brought his German Shepherd. She doesn’t play too well with others. I have a German Shepherd. She had never met a dog bigger than herself before. Cue perfect storm.
My grandfather is basically wonderful, and he’s so proud of me for going to Yale that he literally wears his Yale hat everywhere he goes. That hat was the first thing I saw as my grandparents got out of the car after their long drive. After a grandfatherly bear hug, I braced myself for the 43902 pound German Shepherd attack. I made it out fairly unscathed. My grandmother was next, giving me an air kiss and handing me two Macy’s garment bags filled with birthday dresses. “I didn’t know which one you’d like, so I bought you two. If you hate them both, I’ll take them back and we’ll go shopping tomorrow.” Sweet. After standing in my driveway for about twenty minutes, my grandparents looked down, saw my bare feet, and ushered me inside (it was like 70 degrees out, but apparently “catching your death” was a concern when my grandparents were young). We went inside, and kicked off German Shepherd Parade 2009.
Two shepherds and a man in a Yale hat. Oh, and my mom.
We all breathed sighs of relief upon seeing amicable Shepherd interactions, and all agreed it was time for wine. My grandmother insisted I “do a fashion show” of the dresses she’d bought. Dress Number One was great, if a little conservative. I walked out, and my grandmother nearly choked on her wine. “It’s a little short…don’t you think? And tight?” Good Lord. My mother was behind her, giving me enthusiastic gestures of approval. To humor dear old Grandma, I tried on Dress Number Two, which was covered in weird fringe, and unanimous approval was voiced for Dress One. Time for more wine.
At this point, I informed my grandparents that I would be interviewing them for my US Gay and Lesbian History paper. I needed to know about their first contacts with homosexual men or women when they were young adults, and the impacts (or lack thereof) that they’d had on their lives. My grandfather’s smile froze, and he changed the subject. My grandmother drained her wineglass. Time for hors d’oeuvres? Yes.
My grandma. Wine. Food. Yes.
My uncle arrived, just in time for the first food of the day. He had to bring his own share of turkey, since no one else in my family would be partaking in non tofu based meat dishes. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of a Tofurkey, allow me to enlighten you. A Tofurkey is a tofu based ball of awesome. You baste the outside just like a normal turkey, and the inside is pre-stuffed with a pilaf of goodness. It also comes with a tofu jerky wishbone, dumplings, and gravy. This is what a Tofurkey looks like before it is basted and cooked to fantastic deliciousness:
Two specimens of Tofurkey, next to their less attractive cousin, the vegetarian pot roast.
Mmm. What else was on the menu? The world’s best garlic mashed potatoes, French cut green beans, homemade mushroom pate, this great cauliflower casserole thing that my mom makes, corn, salad, cranberry sauce, and five different kinds of pies. We still have a lot of food in the fridge.
My cousins and aunt and uncle live in California, and wanted to have a family Skype session before dinner. After attempting to teach my mother how to use Skype for about 20 minutes, I finally took over and set the damn thing up myself. We chatted for a few minutes, learning about my cousin’s failed Tofurkey-from-scratch experiment, meeting their new dog, and making bad puns (my uncle is famous for those). It was the best kind of family visit-we got to see them and talk to them, and we didn’t have to cook extra. Win.
To pass the time before the food was ready, we decided to watch a movie. I wanted Narnia, but was overruled with a Robin Williams stand-up comedy DVD. Fine. Unfortunately, this was one of the raunchiest, over-the-top comedy routines I had ever seen, and it lacked in funny. It lacked a lot. My grandma and uncle loved it, my grandfather pretended to be asleep to avoid embarrassment, and my parents and I squirmed uncomfortably. Mom finally announced that dinner was ready, and we scrambled to turn off the Robin Williams Shit Show. Ah, food.
We have a very small dining room table.
After putting on the John Lennon Collection, as is Thanksgiving tradition since I was little and thought the song “Cold Turkey” was about Thanksgiving, we all sat down to eat. Mom forced us to all say we were thankful for stuff, an act for which absolutely no one but the speaker ceased their Olympic food consumption. As we started to slow down and free our mouths for other functions, like speaking, my grandmother turned to me and asked me if I knew about “that Twilight thing…Full Moon or whatever.” I informed her that indeed I had heard of Twilight, and we began talking about Stephanie Meyer’s Mormonism. This lead to a general discussion of the Mormon faith, which my dad believes “has a lot of benefits.” What kinds of benefits, we wanted to know. My grandfather chimed in, “Sexual benefits.” “No the husband doesn’t get to have sex with all the wives at once,” I protested. Uncomfortable silence. “I was thinking more along the lines of sleeping with a different woman every night, but I bet orgies happen too,” my father replied. “Yeah ’cause like, who’s gonna stop them? The Orgy Police?” My last statement sent the conversation plummeting into Inappropriateville, and after a while the talk turned to the movie 300. I told my family all about the Saybrook cheer I had come up with, “Saybrugians, what is your profession?” “Strip! Strip! Strip!” “This is madness! This! Is! Saybrook!” (We’re gonna make this big, folks. Our grandchildren will be chanting this stuff.)
After dinner, we all made our way to the comfy living room furnishings, bordering on food-induced comas. We then proceeded to watch the James Bond marathon on TV, stopping only at 9 to see if The Office was on. It wasn’t. Fail. The sun set, pie was consumed, and we all slowly fell asleep. I can’t say my Thanksgiving was as interesting as I’d expected. My grandparents decided to remain friends, my dad and uncle got along great, as did the German Shepherds. Nobody got drunk and sang karaoke, none of the food burned, and we all got to hear about John Lennon’s heroin withdrawal in “Cold Turkey.” ‘Twas a Thanksgiving so normal (for my family, anyway), that I’m almost disappointed. Oh well. There’s always Christmas…
Comments
Post a Comment