"Friendsgiving"

Meredith Ashton

The Perfect Meal Draft

14 November 2016

"Friendsgiving"

           

My favorite day of the year is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This is when we cook. Or, to be more precise, this is the day that my aunt and grandma arrive at our house early, armed with bagels and coffee and extra heavy earthen serving pans, to begin the all-day affair that is Thanksgiving preparation. I remember waking up early to the smell of my stepmom already starting on the stuffing. Bleary-eyed, I tie up my hair and stagger downstairs in my pajamas to help roll out the notoriously sticky dough for the pumpkin rolls. My dad is there to take pictures of my doubtlessly epic bedhead, which is now destined for Facebook publication. I peel bags of potatoes until my fingers ache and I’m ready to throw myself into the pot with the now-naked vegetables. My grandma stands next to me, dicing celery and onions in her spotless floral collared shirt and pleated khakis, gossiping about the recent scandals in her bridge club (apparently Mary Jane has been taking lots of trips to the casino since her husband got sick). She chops by muscle memory, her eyes roaming everywhere aside from the sharp knife she expertly wields—occasionally using it to gesture in the air to emphasis a particular point.

The work is long and strenuous and you may have nightmares about peeling potatoes in your sleep, but it’s worth it when you sit down at the table surrounded by your family. My grandma taught me that the hours of peeling and boiling and chopping and beating have a meaning beyond the physical; the final product of mouth-watering mashed potatoes are a way to demonstrate to your loved ones the depth of your affection. Knowing every intimate step in the process of creating a dish and then setting it down on the Thanksgiving table translates to I love you, we are family, and we share what we have been given.

Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday, and Thanksgiving dinner, the Perfect Meal. But when my parents got divorced, it was no longer a time that our entire family could come together at one table. It became a holiday of two dinners, of feeling filled with too much food and not enough connection.  Thus, my current quest for the Perfect Meal necessitates a wholeness, a sense of cohesion and belonging that I’ve been lacking since my family’s separation. I want a feeling of togetherness instigated by my own act of love.

My initial premise for my Perfect Meal centered around preparing holiday comfort foods with and for my four housemates, who constitute my college family. We would prepare the meal in accordance with a vegetarian diet (three of us are vegetarians) using mostly gluten-free ingredients (Jake is gluten-free). The dishes would be selected from each of our favorite holiday dishes in an effort to create a new tradition of our own. “Perfect,” in this context, doesn’t require professional culinary execution or presentation or ambiance. Instead, I simply want a cheery meal with my housemates; a way to express my love and gratitude in a manner in which I’m familiar.

“Friendsgiving” Menu:

Amelia’s Baked & Seasoned Brussels Sprouts (recipe credit: her mother)

Julia’s Garlic Potatoes (thanks, Google)

Jake’s Vegan Meatloaf (affectionately called “Eatloaf” by his grandparents)

Baked Mac & Cheese (courtesy of my mother)

Emmy’s Chocolate, Caramel, and Candy Drizzled Apples (found on Facebook)

            I picked up my ingredients on my weekly Saturday shopping trip with my housemate, Emmy, to the Natural Health Center and Target. Sure, Target is hardly a store with a local, organic focus, but it’s far more affordable for buying staple ingredients. I was surprised by how much it cost to purchase the flour, milk, and various cheeses required for the mac and cheese recipe. I had to buy all the basic ingredients as we rarely bake anything in our house (and now I know why).

            I ambitiously set the time of our dinner at 6:30 Sunday night. It was only when I began assisting Jake with the Eatloaf around 4:30 that I realized a crucial fact: we have one oven. As three of the dishes required baking, this was quite the oversight on my part. My mom often says that “good cooking is all about timing.” Damn was she ever right. I decided to cook the Eatloaf while I prepared my mom’s famed mac and cheese recipe.

I made the roux in a saucepan on the stovetop by combining butter and flour. Then, I added the milk and cheeses while I whisked vigorously, taking my  mom’s direction to “whisk like mad” very literally for fear of burning the capricious sauce. There was a tense moment when I thought that the milk had scalded, but I turned down the heat and all seemed to be temporarily okay. It was then that I entered the “it’s all fine” stage of cooking, wherein I accepted that everything was going to go wrong, and it would all still be okay. I began randomly chucking cheeses into the pot with abandon. Slices of Munster and Swiss and shredded Parmesan and extra sharp cheddar and American singles melded into a light orange cream with a few turns of my whisk. My mom’s instruction to “throw in whatever cheese you have leftover in the fridge” gave me some peace of mind that I was, in fact, actually cooking and not just mutilating various cheeses. Granted, she also tastes the mixture before making an addition, but honestly it tasted the same to me before and after the second cup of extra sharp cheddar cheese, so I decided to simply go with “what felt right.” I learned that pasta sticks together after you cook it. This is inconvenient. After prying the cooked noodles apart with a spoon in a glass pan, I was able to pour the finished sauce over the top, the cheese flowing out of the pot and onto the pasta in lovely waves of multi-shaded oranges. I took the Eatloaf out of the oven, put in the pasta, and prayed.

I took extra care with the table, delicately arranging the fake burgundy flowers and baby yellow-and-green gourds around my Forest Spruce candle centerpiece (I’ll admit that I felt grown-up purchasing a candle). I considered calling my mom to ask on which side of the plate the napkins are meant to be placed, but then I realized that no one else would actually notice either way.

We served the meal closer to seven, as Amelia’s Brussels Sprouts were very uncooperative about roasting. When I finally carried the glass bowl bearing the semi-roasted sprouts into the living room, I realized that Jake had put on Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving for a background to our meal, a cheerful little throwback for all of us in the house.

The table itself was so glorious that we all took out our phones before the meal to snap photos of the piles of mashed potatoes, gleaming glass dish of cracker-crumb-crusted mac and cheese, nicely-browned Eatloaf, leafy-green Brussels sprouts, and precarious stacks of candy-coated apples. For once, the lack of overhead lighting in our family room actually added to the ambiance, with only one small lamp and my candle to illuminate the feast. We took our seats with a sense of hushed reverence for what we had, against all the odds, created. I’d meant to say grace, to verbalize the deep affection and regard I held for my housemates who doubled as my family here. I remember saying something mediocre and cliché, but not caring too much. My words were dwarfed by the beauty of the meal before us: a shining pillar of what we could make together.

“This is a good way to sustain us for tenth week,” said Amelia as she took her first bite of mac and cheese. I couldn’t agree more. The Eatloaf was more like an “Eatblob” in shape, the pasta should have been cooked longer, and the aforementioned Brussels sprouts were under roasted. But it could not have been more perfect. The meal in front of us was a beautiful reminder of our individual abilities, our support for one another, and of our own homes to which we would be returning shortly.

We lingered over our plates, happily munching through the caramel apple mountain as we watched Pilgrim Charlie Brown’s very racist interactions with Squanto after the Peanuts arrived on the Mayflower. I did all the dishes that night, singing very off-key Christmas carols as I washed the crumbs of my Perfect Meal off of our ceramic blue plates.