I have spent the last couple of hours pulling apart the warmest, freshest bread I think I have ever bought . They were literally pulling it off of the racks as I was putting it in my bag. And I was standing there thinking, "Really? Today, of all days. Today is the day I have to get here just after they have taken away the day old bread. Today I am going to get the freshest bread possible?". I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. Because today was the day I needed the day old bread. I could have used 2 day old bread actually. You see, for the first time, I am making my mom's famous stuffing for Thanksgiving (ok, so maybe it is just famous in my family) and I need stale, hardened bread to get it just right. Instead, I got fresh. So fresh I swear the yeast was still rising. I didn't have any other option seeing as all of the breads were just as fresh. So, I stuffed my bag full with about 40 loaves and took it home and ripped every last loaf into teeny tiny pieces. And all the while I was thinking about how much I truly hoped that the bread would harden and dry out by Friday night. It has to. Just has to. Because our Thanksgiving celebration is on Saturday and it is the one traditional, homemade thing we will have. Sure we will have turkey (outsourced and made by the supermarket since you can't buy one here), cranberries (from a can, imported from the US), and pumpkin pies (again, outsourced because you can't buy pumpkin puree here). We will probably also have chorizo and steak. And some other not so traditional things. So the stuffing is the only piece of home that our family will have.
And it is like having a piece of home because I don't think there is a Thanksgiving in my memory that we didn't have my mom's stuffing. Other things have changed over the years - the time we ate, where we celebrated, whom we celebrated with. And the menu has varied a bit, but one thing I don't seem to ever recall being changed, was the stuffing. Hand ripped bread crumbs, a bit of celery, some pork sausage and a special blend of spices. And a few other things that I couldn't possibly give away (it is Nana's secret recipe after all). And I know in the past ten years, B has come to associate Thanksgiving with that stuffing. It is B's favorite part of the meal and Nana always has to make enough so that he has leftovers for a week. My girls eat it like it was candy.
And I can't disappoint them. Because even though we are having a Thanksgiving celebration it will not be able to compare to being with family. A family that starts cooking early in the morning and starts eating shortly there after. With a break or two for a football game and a beer and some more munching. Finally, late in the afternoon, the turkey would be done and we would all sit around the big table (no kids table in our family) and eat until our belts were too tight, drink until the wine was gone and then sit and talk while we waited for our bellies to be able to handle pie. That is what we will be missing. And it will not be the same, this we already know. So if I can only give my family this one thing, I want to make sure I do it to the best of my ability. It will not live up to Nana's (whose could) but each bite will remind us that, even though we are 6000 miles away from home, we can still bring a bit of it to us. We will still be missing our families, as I am sure they will be missing us, but maybe with having this one thing in common we will feel just a little bit closer and thankful that we have each other, even if we aren't all together.
And with that in mind I want to leave you with a list of what we are thankful for this year. This years list is a bit humorous ..It doesn't include the obvious, because who isn't thankful for their family, their health, their job, their good fortune...? But here are the less obvious things we are thankful for. Straight out of the mouths of babes...
MadHatter (age 4 5/6) - yep, she takes her age seriously
I am thankful for my Mama keeping my secrets and then writing them down in my book so I can remember them. For being a kid, because I don't want to be a grownup and have to do the cooking and cleaning all the time. For my toys and my movies - what would I do when Stinkerbell is sleeping if I didn't have them? For Mama letting me watch Sponge Bob sometimes when Papa is gone; it's our secret (not anymore MadHatter - sorry). For Dulce but next year Mama, I want to be thankful for my cat too (she really wants one - B doesn't). For my bones getting bigger because it would be weird to be 5 and still have them be the same size as when I was 4.
And she finished with the usual - she was thankful for Mom and Dad and her sister, her family and God.
Stinkerbell (age 3)
For Dulce. For Dulce. For Dulce. When asked what else she would like to thank God for this year she said, "nothing, just Dulce".
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