By this time next week, Thanksgiving will be on us - figuratively and literally.
By this time next week we will have cooked, consumed and be heading back for just a little bit more of all those things that get whipped up this time and this time of year alone. We will have gotten out the good china, helped in the kitchen and been nice to our relatives, again, all things that happen only once a year.
For of all our holidays, Thanksgiving is truly a “one-off.” It’s not like any other. No mythical people or animals breaking into your house to leave stuff (ever wonder why home invasion plays such an important role in our celebrations?
Just asking …), no blowing things up just because we can, no making promises you have no intention of keeping (unless you count “Really, I can’t possibly eat another piece of pumpkin pie.”). You cook stuff , you eat stuff and you watch football while falling asleep on the sofa. OK, some of that you do more than once a year. It’s just more special on Thanksgiving.
But it’s the this-time-ofyear-and-this-time-of-yearalone nature of what you cook that makes this unique.
I call it the Waldorf Salad Effect, but every family has its own variation. Usually involving yams and mini marshmallows.
Waldorf salad is this strange combination of apples and walnuts and I’mnot quite sure what else made ... in some way. I’ve never seen it anywhere else.
I’ve certainly never asked for it anywhere else. And no one in my family seemed to actually like it, or even eat it. Every Thanksgiving it just sat there in a bowl, looking kind of like what you would imagine an orchard would resemble after an attack by Samurai Fruit. If, for some reason you would imagine that.
The thing about it was, without it, it just really wasn’t Thanksgiving at our house. It was just some other day when we ate a lot and watched the Lions lose.
Now, the lovely Mrs.
Smith (my wife, not my mother. Though they are both lovely. And Mrs.
Smith.) doesn’t make Waldorf Salad, so I’ve had to fill the only-at-Thanksgivingso-you-know-it’s-specialfood void with turkey frying.
Turkey frying is the semi-uniquely Southern tradition of preparing your Thanksgiving meal by dumping a turkey in a vat of hot oil and then drinking bourbon until it’s done. The turkey, not the bourbon (though there is merit to the latter). It was probably invented by wiveswho wanted their husbands more involved in meal preparation. So, instead of seeing them slouching on the couch watching the giant Underdog balloon break loose and terrorize New York, they could see them lounging in a lawn chair watching a pot of hot oil, which made them feel better for some reason.
Turkey frying is everything men want in cooking. It has to be done outside, it involves open flame and the possibility (however remote) of an explosion and it allows to you to be close to your family but not too close.
Like, they have to stay inside, for safety’s sake of course, while you must remain ever vigilant by the fryer, watching for any sign of possible catastrophe, armed only with cigars and Jack Daniels.
The only disadvantages of turkey frying are it generates around 55 gallons of toxic peanut oil they won’t even accept at one of those nuclear dumps in Nevada, and cleanup of the apparatus itself takes about a year and is best done in the cattle hauler stall of a car wash.
My turkey fryer came with about 15 diff erent baskets and containers, all of which, the instructions assure me, can be used for things like lobster boils (yep, we do a lot of that in the most mountainous part of a land-locked state) and salt water desalinization. In fact, I’m pretty sure that, with the right ingredients andsome copper tubing, I could qualify for my own show on the Discovery Channel (the “all-rednecks, all-the-time” network).
Yes, my turkey fryer is a wondrous piece of equipment with an entire cookbook full of options (deep-fried Twinkies anyone?) that I use exactly one time a year. Like the silver flatware and most of my children’s manners, it’s a Thanksgiving-only thing.
More than that and the magic gets ruined.
And we’re heading into the season of magic, when we do things at least once that we probably should do all year long. So enjoy. Enjoy all the food that brings back all the memories and ties all the generations together, if only in mutual dislike of Jell-O with those strange little orange slices in it.
Eat the candied yams and strange pickled stuff they used to make in the Old Country (or at least your grandmother’s house in St.
Louis) and that green bean deal you make with cream of mushroom soup and what I’m sure I’ll fi nd out are fake onions. OK, that one’s actually pretty good.
And enjoy your family.
Keep them happy and safe and away from the turkey fryer and close to your heart.
And pass the Waldorf salad.
GARY SMITH IS A RECOVERING JOURNALIST LIVING IN ROGERS AND PREPARING TO FRY A TURKEY.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 11/15/2012