The buffet already has leftover turkey, which Lois makes by first steaming it and then roasting it, and her traditional bread dumplings in rich turkey gravy. I spy Eloise’s potato gratin with prunes, and Andrea must be upstairs; I recognize the ham and sweet potatoes from last night. I can smell the unmistakable scent of brussels sprouts caramelizing in a hot oven. Eloise puts my cranberry sauce and rolls on the buffet, and returns to arranging cookies.
When we are done eating, we will decorate the store for the holidays, setting up the menorah with the orange lightbulb “flames” in the front window, and next to it, Aimee’s favorite tree, a small tabletop vintage German one made of white turkey feathers. In the far corner, Lois’s sons have already set up an eight-foot blue spruce, and Benji brought the boxes of lights and ornaments up from the basement on Wednesday. Every year Eloise has a class where kids make and decorate ornaments out of either stiff bread dough or a cinnamon paste that gets baked to rock hardness. She has them each make two, one to take home and one for our tree. It’s always fun to see kids who have been with us for the past few years come back to find their ornaments on the tree and show them off, or bring younger siblings to class to introduce them to the tradition.
The door flies open, bringing with it a wild gust of wind that ruffles my hair and raises goose bumps all over my arms.
“Do. I. Have. The. Delicious?” Benji yells to the room. “Hell to the yeah, I do!” His long arms are full of bags and boxes, and it looks as if he has decided to make the entire meal again on his own. I remember that feeling. When I was first out of culinary school, I would leave restaurants and dinner parties and holiday dinners and run to the grocery store to go home and try to recreate or improve on the favorite dishes. Even at my own parties, I’d have a flash of how to make a dish even better, and pop out of bed in the middle of the night or the wee hours of the morning to see if my vision was real.
I look at Benji unpacking casserole dishes and Tupperware containers on the buffet, and smile, thinking that he must have been up at the crack of dawn inspired and nearly feverish with the adrenaline of cooking flat out from the deepest part of your heart. No different than an artist frantically slapping the paint on the canvas, or a writer in the middle of the night typing with sparks shooting out of their fingers to get the story down. When you are possessed by food as chefs are, and the muse calls, you head to the stove.
Benji is explaining his offerings to Lois and Eloise, who are looking at him bemusedly. “I hacked an old Crock-Pot and turned it into a sous vide machine, and did a turkey breast, and then seared the skin on the stovetop, so it is totally crispy, but the meat is BEYOND juicy. And the stuffing is a combination of homemade corn bread, homemade buttermilk biscuits, and brioche, with sage and thyme and celery and onion and shallot. And I tried the Robuchon Pommes Puree, and thought that there was no way to put THAT much butter into that much potato, but holy moley is it amazeballs! And I did a butternut squash soup with fried ginger and almond cake with apple compote.” All the bustle has roused Volnay, who wanders over to greet Benji, and receives a dog biscuit for her trouble from Eloise.
“Honey, breathe a little,” I say, laughing.
“It’s just . . . I . . . I mean . . . THANKSGIVING!” he says, which cracks us all up.
Andrea appears from upstairs and comes over to give me a hug.
“Nice outfit,” I whisper, looking her up and down pointedly. “Looks just as good as it looked last night.”
Andrea blushes. “Yeah, um . . .”
“Dr. Law from Cincinnati?”
Her skin burnishes even deeper, going absolutely copper. “Yup.”
“You fabulous Jezebel, you!”
“All my bitches getting LAID.”
“We didn’t . . . I mean, not really, we just had a drink, and we talked and . . .”
“You have nothing to apologize to me about, I took my lawyer to bed. More power to you.”
“Deck the halls with boys and con-doms . . . fa la la la la.”
“I actually kind of, I dunno, LIKE him?”
“Good. He seemed likable. If he sticks, maybe we can double-date!”
“Yeah, you can go for malteds after the sock hop.”
“Let’s see if I get a solo date first before we make reservations.”
“Good plan. But regardless, I think you have something extra to be thankful for!”
“Stop whispering in corners, you two, and help us get this food organized,” Lois calls out to us.
“Wait till you taste Benji’s soup,” Eloise says, a steaming mug in her hands and a proud smile on her face.
“’Cause Benji is a ge-nius,” Benji singsongs.
“Oy. Let’s go eat before these people lose their minds.” I take Andrea’s hand and we go to load up our plates.
* * *
So then we’re getting all the food out, and guess who comes in the door?” Benji says, working on his second enormous plate of food. Where he puts it in his scrawny body is beyond me. His metabolism is the thing on earth I covet the most. I skipped seconds yesterday and today and tried to limit desserts to just tastes, but I’ll still end the weekend four pounds heavier, and will barely get it off before Christmas puts it right back on.
“Elton John,” Andrea teases, since we heard this story last night.
Lois smacks her arm. “Who, Schatzi?”
“The MAYOR,” Benji says.
“Mayor McCheese?” I say, teasing.
“The Mayor of Casterbridge?” Eloise jumps in.
“Rahm freaking EM-AN-U-EL, you evil women. And you know what was really cool? It was just him and his family and the security, no press, you know? No photographers, no posing. It was like, ‘Hey! I’m your mayor. Sort of sucks that you don’t have parents, but I’ve got your back, and how is your Thanksgiving?’ He was badass. And his wife gave me her card because she wants me to send her my recipes! And he told me I made the only pecan pie he ever actually liked, and I totally didn’t even flinch when he shook my hand and I felt that weird little nubbin finger!” Benji dips his finger in gravy and puts his hand down for Volnay to lick. Spoiled dog.
Andrea and I are laughing so hard that tears are streaming, and Lois is holding her sides while her astounding bosom heaves, and Eloise chuckles behind her delicate hand.
“And was your dinner that exciting, El?” Andrea asks.
Eloise shakes her head. “Nothing special. We went to my aunt’s house in Rockford, me and my folks and my sister and her kids. My brother-in-law is still deployed, but he was able to Skype in and say hi, so that was good. We had sent a care package for him and his unit, and it arrived in time, so they all kept walking by to thank us over his shoulder, made us feel really proud. My cousins were all in for the weekend with all of their kids, so there was lots of noise and laughter, and my aunt is a great holiday cook, all the classics, so it was a nice day. And my team won the touch football, so we didn’t have to clean up, which is always nice!” For being the world’s most maternal, nurturing, supportive person on the planet, Eloise HATES cleaning. She isn’t slovenly, more just messy, leaving a wake behind her of bits from craft projects and half-read magazines, and half-drunk mugs of tea. When she cooks, she does so with wild abandon, and then faces the pile of dishes and sighs deeply, as if it is a Sisyphean task that will kill her.
“God forbid you wash a dish, Mausi,” Lois says, giving her arm a pinch. Lois loves cleaning up. Eloise is an endless source of fabulous cleaning-up opportunities for Lois, who teases her good-naturedly about it, and adores every pot she can scrub spotless and every surface she can clear and organize.
“And how was yours, Lois?” Benji asks around a mouthful of stuffing.
“Ack, gut. My daughters-in-law, you know . . .” she shrugs her rounded shoulders resignedly. “They are such sweet girls, good mothers, kind to me . . .”
“And such bad cooks!” we all say in unison, the refrain of every Leftovers Brunch in our history.
“Tell us,” Benji says,
all of us relishing the litany and details of failed dishes.
“Well, Gina, you know, she is Italian, so she brings sausages in peppers, which smells like feet. And she takes the beautiful sausages that Kurt makes at the butcher shop and cooks them until they are like hard little rocks. Ellie, she is afraid of getting fat, so she makes cheesecake with no-fat Greek yogurt and Egg Beaters and fake sugar that tastes mostly of petrol. Lisa wanted to do stuffing, and it was so dry that you could barely choke it down. I had to make a second batch of gravy in the middle of dinner because everyone was trying to soak it so that it didn’t kill us.”
“But you made that beautiful turkey, and those dumplings are like pillows,” Andrea says.
“And your famous German potato salad,” Eloise says.
“And all of those desserts from the bakery,” I say, dreaming of crispy, sweet pastries, oozing custard and homemade jam and dolloped with whipped cream.
“A good meal in spite of the girls.” Lois beams, knowing that we all really mean our compliments. “Now. I clean up while you start the tree.” None of us argue, she loves to do it, and we are in divide and conquer mode.
Benji and Eloise untangle the lights and get them strung on the tree, while Andrea and I set up the menorah and Aimee’s tree in the window. Aimee always liked the feathers lit with pink fairy lights, and dangled with vintage silver mercury glass balls. We just leave it decorated year to year, so all we have to do is plug it in. The menorah is a kitschy silver plastic number with nine orange lightbulbs that you screw in as the nights go by. Since Chanukah is still a couple of weeks off, we just light the center Shamash light until the holiday arrives. A couple of garlands around the base of the window, and stacks of cookbooks tied with ribbons and topped with whisks go around the bases.
We are just heading back to help get the ornaments on the tree, when there is a knock at the door.
Wayne and Noah are grinning and making nearly identical faces in the window, and I go to let them in.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” Wayne says, throwing his arms wide and smacking Noah right in the forehead. “Oh, hey, sorry little man.” He ruffles Noah’s hair. Noah cracks up.
“Dad, you are such a klutz. Try not to concuss me. Hey Jenna.”
Noah is a roly-poly kid, all cheeks and poochy tummy and little round butt sticking out. But this is just Wayne’s genetics peeking through; he’s a pretty good athlete, a fast runner, good soccer player, and my guess is that when he hits puberty, he’ll shoot up like a beanpole and lose the baby fat. I’m wishing a total Jerry O’Connell for him. His hair is light brown with a hint of strawberry, and has a major cowlick right over his left eyebrow that always makes him look as if he has had a recent surprise. Bright blue eyes, freckles on his nose, smart as a whip, and about the most easygoing kid you can imagine. I reach out to give him a hug.
“Hey kiddo, how’s it going?”
“He’s still working on that ark,” Wayne says, making the crazy sign with his finger next to his temple. “Talks to God.” Wayne never gets tired of the Noah jokes. I have no idea why Noah doesn’t tell him to shut up already, but I guess after ten years of it, he just lets it slide.
“Yup. Anyone seen a pair of aardvarks around here anywhere?” Noah asks. He drops his coat on a chair, and goes to give Volnay a cuddle. Aimee and I always said that when it came to kids, Noah was like winning the lottery.
“He was better than winning the lottery. That kid never broke anything, spilled anything, pitched a fit or complained. And more importantly, he never once got sick when he was with us.”
Aimee was fearless about everything except puking.
“Cannot. Do. It. Not mine. Not yours. Not anyone’s.”
Even when she got sick, with all the pain and fatigue, she was nauseated a lot, but never threw up.
“’Cause that is how I roll. I am a vomit-free zone. Also? In heaven, no barfing. You have my word on that.”
Noah leaves Volnay to return to her nap and heads over to say hello to everyone, and gets hugs and kisses and high fives before Lois squires him over to the buffet, where we have left all the desserts set up. Noah carefully chooses one of Eloise’s spicy gingersnaps dipped in white chocolate, one of Lois’s poppy-seed cookies, and one of Benji’s pecan squares and brings his plate over to the tree.
“We saved all your ornaments for you,” Eloise says, handing him the small box where we have always kept his ornaments, since he has come to every ornament class since the very first one and always makes at least four or five to leave here. It is fun to see the progression of his skills, from the lumpy, spattered sloppy ones from his first class, to last year’s fairly precise renditions of all of the Angry Birds characters.
“Excellent,” Noah says, putting the poppy-seed cookie in his mouth whole and taking the box, beginning to place his ornaments randomly all over the tree. “A little bit of Noah wherever you look,” he says.
“What is your theme this year?” Eloise asks. The ornament class is in two weeks; we always schedule it on Wayne’s weekends.
“I think I’m going superhero logos this time. Batman and Robin. Superman. Captain America. Wonder Woman. Spiderman. Maybe the Incredibles.”
“Sounds very awesome,” Andrea says.
“You doing the Punisher?” Benji asks.
“Don’t know that one, is it cool?”
“Yeah, he’s a good one from the ’70s. Marvel. Logo is a really amazing stylized skull.”
“Hey Dad! When we go to Elliot’s can we look for the Punisher?” Noah yells out to Wayne, who has been silently demolishing the desserts. He must have eaten at least a dozen cookies in the last six minutes.
“Yeah, totally!” Wayne says, cookie crumbs flying out of his mouth in a spectacular spray.
“Way to win the hearts of the ladies, Dad.” Noah laughs.
Wayne smiles and takes a napkin to shield his mouth. “Oops.”
“We’re going to Elliot’s store later. Are you coming, Jenna?” Elliot is Wayne’s best friend since grade school. Aimee always called him Frumpty Dumpty.
“Because he looks like a Weeble.”
Elliot is a nice enough guy, definitely in need of a total makeover, shares the whole Star Wars/sci-fi/Dungeons & Dragons thing with Wayne, and owns a small comic book store in Andersonville. What I do know is that he has really been there for Wayne since Aimee got sick, checking in, dropping off groceries, taking Noah out to movies and arcades when Wayne needed to take Aimee to the doctor.
“Can’t buddy, have to finish decorating here. Besides, that is guy time. No girl cooties allowed at Elliot’s.”
“You don’t have girl cooties. You could be like our Batgirl.”
“Spoken like a kid who has no idea how bad you would look in a rubber catsuit.”
Thanks.
“I’m just saying they are unforgiving. I couldn’t pull one off on my best day. And your Polish-peasant tush? I think not.”
“I appreciate that, Noah. Maybe next time.”
“Hey Dad, Jenna says she’ll come next time. When I’m back, that’s Elliot’s store party right?”
“Yep.”
“Cool, Jenna, you can come with us. It is going to be AWESOME.”
“That will be great,” I say, smiling.
Super. I now have agreed to attend some sort of party at Elliot’s store. I smell a night of Chex Mix and Taco Bell catering, cases of Schlitz and the Star Wars soundtrack on the record player while the overgrown geek patrol wanders around looking for a bargain on Batman comics. Fab. Going to have to figure out a way to avoid that.
“C’mon kiddo, finish getting your stuff on the tree so we can skedaddle. Elliot is going to leave early so we can go have movie marathon at his house.”
“’Kay Dad. Almost done.” Noah begins to deliberately and thoughtfully find places for his ornaments on the tree, with Eloise and Benji helping.
“How was everything yesterday?” I ask Wayne.
“Okay,” he says. “Subdued. It was hard
to not have her there, and noticeable. But the nieces and nephews were all in good form, so that kept us laughing. We had a tough moment during grace, saying how much we missed Thom and Jean and Aimee, and something is going on with Jordan; he was really just off to himself most of the day. But it was pretty good, all things considered. They all send their love to you and say they can’t wait to have you for Christmas. I figure you and I can drive together.”
Terrif. Three hours each way trapped in the car with Wayne.
“Sure. That will be good.” And then pigs will fly out of my butt.
Wayne reaches for another cookie just as Noah finishes up.
“I’m going to hit the head before we go, buddy,” Wayne says, striding toward the little powder room in the back of the store.
“How are you doing, Jenna?” Damned if the little bastard didn’t just head tilt at me.
“I’m okay, Noah. How are you doing?”
He shrugs. “I miss Aimee. She was always really nice to me, and she wasn’t ever a stepmonster like some of my friends have. And I’m really sad for my dad. He tries to pretend he is okay, but . . .” Noah leans in conspiratorially, and whispers, “I hear him crying sometimes in the bathroom or when he thinks I’m sleeping.”
“We’re all really sad because we all loved her so much, especially your dad. So it is pretty normal that he might be upset. Does it scare you when you hear him crying?” I know that sometimes it is really traumatic for kids to see weakness or vulnerability in their parents.
“No. I know he feels bad and he just misses Aimee.”
“That’s right.”
“And I know that he has you to be his bestie and make sure he is okay, so that makes me feel better.”
Out to Lunch Page 10