A STUDY IN FRENZY & GRACE By: Kim Long, DRE ONE WOULD THINK that with a name like Thanksgiving that the ensuing day and meal would be oh I don’t know relaxing, gratitude inducing, and holistic. Mass in the early morning so as our priest said on Thanksgiving day the ladies can get home and “ see to the lunch”, a few televised parades, football, and the attractiveness of a menu which seldom changes. As I think back to my childhood memories of Thanksgiving dinners I am reminded of the scripture verse that says when I was a child I thought as a child. Certainly all my siblings and I wanted to see were the sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top had been removed from the broiler just before they were browned beyond felicity, never giving a moment’s thought to all the effort, planning, and budgeting that went into providing a real feast for us. We stuffed our faces and were expelled from the house to go outside and play. My sister and I were grateful we were not deemed mature enough to help with the washing of the good china my grandmother set the table with. We stuffed dried and crunchy leaves down one another’s shirts, rested on our backs comparing shapes we saw in the clouds, and were filled with the wonder of a basically ordinary childhood. Today I am the grandmother. I am also absolutely certain that I do not possess the calm and efficient demeanor and seamless productivity of my grandmother, mother, and aunt. In my experience there are two ways to approach this culinary High Holy Day. One way is to plan ahead/do ahead/freeze ahead. This was a method first offered to me in the cookbook entitled appropriately enough “Happy Holidays from the Diva of Do Ahead: A Year of Feasts to Celebrate with Family and Friends” written by Dianne Phillips. I tend to read cookbooks the way I read novels - front to back with lots of underlines. This book was no exception. With timelines, shopping lists, and menus she was the model of efficiency but I could not embrace her entire plan, instead opting to 24 THE CATHOLIC CONNECTION
bake the cornbread early and freeze it. The other effort I made at planning was a to do list which was revised each morning ad nauseum. Two tricks I learned from my aunt were to set the table ahead of time and cover it with a clean sheet to keep dust from spoiling it. Along with that she pulled all her serving dishes and wrote the food they would hold on sticky notes. It works well and saves time when the moment is at hand. Other than these few time saving measures, I prefer to live on the edge, employing method number two which is to set my clock for 4 am (a time I find it particularly difficult to be thankful for much of anything except coffee...yes coffeestrong, hot, and delicious) and get cooking. Everything seems to be going according to plan so I can cover the pots on the stove and dash off to Mass (this is one Mass I try to always attend....it does help me balance the self generated madness of this cooking marathon). Later at home I vault through the door, my purse and missal to one side and the car keys flung in the opposite direction the smell of the food fills me completely and I drift for a few seconds down the road of time into my grandmother’s own kitchen. Snapping back to reality I finish up my preparations just in time... always just in time. This year, one of the readings for Mass on Thanksgiving Day is from Sirach and it is a beautiful reminder that we are in God’s care. Here is part of it, “And now bless the God of all, who has done wondrous things on earth who fosters people’s growth from their mother’s womb and fashions them according to his will!” Kim Long is the Director of Religious Education at Saint Mary of the Pine Parish
