This Saturday we hosted an early Thanksgiving dinner. I roasted a Turkey, made something like 12 pounds of mashed potatoes, and baked a pumpkin pie. As I prepared the pie and potatoes I was thuroughly enjoying the fun of cooking. When I started the turkey I was taken back to all the times I helped my mother roast the Turkey for Thanksgiving. We would share space at the kitchen sink, rinse the turkey in cold water, pat it inside and out with a paper towl, and salt it. Holding the defrosted bird in the sink brought a surge of nostalgia for cooking with my mother. I seperated the skin from the meat and rubbed butter on the inside of the bird, placing fresh thyme and rosemary along with the butter.
I have been planning to start to write on my blog in December as an homage to my mother's decline in health and the time we spent as a family taking care of her. But I realize as we approach Thanksgiving that this was really the beginning of her decline. She took off from work and was unable to return. I felt like yesterday's early celebration was in a way a celebration of the things my mother taught me in the kitchen. Sort of like a little offering in her memory.
