This year, Dan and I had to stay in Boise for Thanksgiving. Typically on this gluttonous occasion, Dan and I spend one year with my family and the next with his family. But due to a previous commitment, we were unable to travel anywhere this year.
I didn't mind. I enjoy cooking although I don't think anyone else in my family believes I can. I didn't spend a lot of time in the kitchen with my mother when I was growing up. Instead, I entered adolescence complaining about our male-dominated society and being forced into gender roles and that I wasn't going to end up barefoot and . . . well, you know the rest. This may have left the impression that I did not have any desire to don an apron and impersonate Donna Reed.
But remember people, cooking is all about following rules. And even though I may talk about bucking the establishment and sticking it to the man, I'm an awesome rule follower.
When I moved away from home at age eighteen and had to cook for myself, I found that I kind of liked it.
Every year, I ask whether or not I need to bring anything for the Thanksgiving dinner. I have all of my mother's favorite holiday recipes and since my mother is no longer living, I would think that some of my family would want at least one of her dishes on the table. But my immediate family consists of only men now, and their stomachs are extremely adaptable to new traditions. If they are fed, they are happy.
So usually my question is met with, "Can you pick up some rolls from Costco on your way into town?" Or "No, I think we have everything covered."
This year, I was eager to finally be in control of my own Thanksgiving meal. (Control is very important to us awesome rule followers.) And I wouldn't even have a bunch of women feeling obligated (as I do every year) to ask whether or not they could "help" with anything in the kitchen.
When Dan asks if he can help, I usually say, "No, not right now. But you know what would be really helpful? If you do the dishes at the end of dinner." That's how the responsibilities are divvied up in my household. And then I don't have to deal with people under my feet in the kitchen - a byproduct of my control issues, which I am sure I inherited from my mother along with her Thanksgiving recipes.
Then I realized I had to cook a turkey. I don't know about other families, but my Thanksgiving schema consists of a haggard mother in a bathrobe rising at 7:00 in the morning to put the turkey in the oven, a starving household at 1:00 in the afternoon, and meaning-of-life questions such as "Why hasn't the thermometer popped yet?" or "Hasn't it been six hours?"
"My mother always had trouble timing the turkey too," Dan said as we stared at the red plastic thingy that hadn't popped yet even though it had been roasting for an hour over its supposed maximum cooking time.
But I was different. I had made a list! I had calculated every dish exactly according to the maximum roasting time for the turkey. I had meticulously delineated the time to begin preparing each dish so that everything would finish cooking at exactly the same moment. I knew that was much more anal than both my mother's and mother-in-law's cooking practices. But I still was defeated by the uncooperative Thanksgiving turkey tradition.
So we kept the food warm and ate our Thanksgiving meal about two hours behind schedule. And it was just fine. The world didn't end because my turkey had decided not to follow my carefully plotted agenda. Anyway, what would Thanksgiving be without uncooperative turkeys?
