Most Saturday nights I dine with Dennis at La Morra, a Tuscan style bistro just down the street from our home in Brookline. Though some might roll their eyes at the thought of my almost always ordering the tagliatelle al ragù, I think of it as a cherished ritual. I look forward to enjoying this dish the way I look forward to dining on turkey and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving.
This weekend I attended a business retreat at a hotel on Cape Cod, and of necessity found myself going through a buffet line on Saturday night. I was glad to see honey roasted sweet potatoes and a carving station with a turkey. When I got to my table, a woman saw the display on my plate as a reminder that she needed to make Thanksgiving plans – deciding whether to host the dinner at her home or invite everybody to a restaurant.
Dennis and I look forward to the ritual of gathering with loved ones. We know the core group will be based on work schedules and geography. This year we will be heading to Orlando, where in addition to having Thanksgiving dinner with Daphne and her husband, Etan, her in-laws, Don and Janice, and her aunt and uncle, Helene and Steve, we will also enjoy what I hope will be a week of sunshine and warm weather.
Still, I have fond memories of five Thanksgivings since Daphne graduated from college:
1998 – Thrilled that Daphne was starting a job at Parents magazine by mid-October, I feared that she might have to work the Friday after Thanksgiving, making a trip home to Boston impractical. She’d probably cringe if she knew this, but on her first day of work I called the switchboard and without giving my name, asked whether the staff would have that Friday off. When the operator gave me the answer I was hoping for, I explained why I’d asked, and she could not have been more understanding.
1999- Even more thrilled that Daphne had traded up to a job at WSJ.com, I pretty much assumed that she would be working not just the Friday after Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving too. Dennis, not yet my husband, had invited me to join the holiday celebration convened at his home, and I was pleased that I wouldn’t be alone. When I connected with Daphne, she assured me that she and her colleagues had purchased take-out Thanksgiving dinners at a place near the office.
2003 – With Daphne writing for The Daily Press in Newport News, VA, my sister, Phyllis, based in Boulder, suggested that our respective families gather in historic Williamsburg, where Daphne was living. It was early August when she made her proposal, and Dennis’ one caveat was that we have Thanksgiving dinner at the Williamsburg Inn. It took me more than two months to nail down the reservation. Phyllis meant well when she also asked my brother and his family, and my parents to join us, but that’s where the disconnect occurred. My brother’s response to my e-mail trumpeting that I’d finally landed a reservation for 10 people at a table near the window overlooking the gardens put me over the edge. If he and his wife were planning to travel with their exchange students, couldn't they have told me beforehand?
2005 – Now that Daphne had moved to the Orlando Sentinel, I thought of Thanksgiving as a pretext for a warm weather vacation just as Boston was starting to get cold. Over the course of many telephone conversations, Daphne and I discussed the possibilities for Thanksgiving dinner. She told me the Whole Foods in Winter Park was not as nice as the one in West Newton, MA, and that I might be disappointed. Ultimately I suggested talking to one of the paper’s food writers, Scott Joseph. He suggested Chez Justin’s Park Plaza Gardens, a beautiful airy space with good food. But the best part of this Thanksgiving was meeting Daphne’s new boyfriend, Etan, at dinner on Wednesday evening -- just before he headed off to celebrate with his family in Philadelphia.
2007 – Daphne and Etan, living together in a cute little bungalow with a big veranda, invited both sets of parents to Thanksgiving dinner at their home. The food, which included a turkey cooked by TooJay’s Gourmet Deli, and Etan’s orange sweet potato casserole with marshmallow topping, was great. Etan provided post dinner entertainment with a product he was testing, a gizmo offering hundreds of movies. To this day, I’m not sure what to make of it, but the only movie all four parents could agree on was Fracture, about a psychopathic wife-killer played by Anthony Hopkins.
No comments:
Post a Comment