DC's Feast - The usual and lots of pie

"What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000."

-- Wavy Gravy at Woodstock

Nov. 21, 2002

Dear Leslie,

We are not nearly so ambitious as Wavy Gravy, but readying Thanksgiving dinner for 19 does feel like an army mobilization.

The first shipment arrived last weekend, a pickup truck filled with foodstuffs: The biggest turkey in the store, enormous bags of stuffing mix, 10 pounds of potatoes I get to peel -- is that enough? -- huge cans of pumpkin and pecan pie filling and many packages of frozen pie crusts.

There's so much raw material for pies because DC has decided everybody is going home with a pie.

The last time DC hosted a dinner party she painted the inside of the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom just in case anyone peeked. She did the walls and ceilings in the dining room and den while she was at it.

Now the living room is getting the Van Gogh treatment just in time for Thanksgiving.

This dinner will be much more familial and much less gastronomically adventurous than the last one. For Thanksgiving, the members of my family expect turkey, dressing containing no chestnuts, oysters or raisins, real mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, cranberries, rolls, pumpkin pie with whipped cream and the Detroit Lions on the television. Any deviation from the tradition would be highly risky.

DC and I mean to please. The last thing you want is 19 people wondering why anyone would want to spoil Thanksgiving by serving something different.

Thanksgiving can be long and lonely. I survived a few interminable ones in California and New York trying to make hours of small talk with strangers. But it also can be a wonderful feeling when you're far from home to be accepted as a member of someone else's family for the day.

One Thanksgiving in San Francisco DC found herself seated across the table from a Korean woman who had never encountered canned whipped cream. Everybody but the Korean woman and her husband thought the sight of DC drenched in white froth was funny. He insisted on leaving, only to return with gifts for DC.

Always use real whipped cream.

Thanksgiving with family is comforting. You know who wants white meat, who wants pecan pie instead of pumpkin and who's going to doze off during the fourth quarter. Another reassuring thing: Dress is casual.

This is the first year DC and I have taken over responsibility for the Thanksgiving feast from my parents. My mom decided she had roasted enough turkeys in this lifetime. She deserves to sit back and talk with her grandchildren and not worry about whether the rolls are burning.

The season is in the air. The curbs are covered with leaves raked there in anticipation of the city's collection trucks. Our dogs love to play in the piles during their walks.

Our neighbor, John, is burning some of his leaves. People don't burn leaves there in California because they don't fall and if they did there would be too much danger of fire. Here, the smell of burning leaves is one of fall's sweetest pleasures.

The second pickup truck filled with food arrived Wednesday. The glint of aluminum roasting pans in the kitchen is almost blinding. The front porch is lined with soldierly liters of soft drinks at our service. The larder is bursting.

How fortunate we are. Thanksgiving is nigh.

Thanksgiving is nigh.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.