For the past three Thanksgivings, JG and I have gone up to Mimi’s from Wednesday to Saturday. We look forward to yearly rituals to follow and games to play, but I would be remiss if I did not mention the traditional Black Friday shopping marathon. The girls get together and fan out within each store, scouting for the other, digging through piles, and ducking and weaving through crowds. Within a warm, glowy sphere of family togetherness, I think cutting off other girls from striped sweaters might be my favorite part.
This year, however, I’m not able to take time off on the day after Thanksgiving, so JG and I are heading up this afternoon and coming back home on Thursday night. I’ve worked longer hours so that I can leave early today and we can make it in time for the pre-Thanksgiving dinner at Mimi’s club. At least we have that. I’m trying not to be a baby about missing the post-Thanksgiving traditions this year. I mean, I can handle it for one year, and it’s really more of a function of a probation period for time off than anything else. It’ll be quiet in the office, right? I’ll get a lot of work done…
Anyway! I first joined in on JG’s family’s Thanksgiving festivities when JG and I got engaged, and I was rather overwhelmed. My, you people are all loud talkers. My, you are all very passionate about your sports teams. My, you are all so tall! I had memorized everyone’s names beforehand, and I won a few games throughout the weekend, so I managed fairly well. The real shock came at the dinner table.
First of all, JG’s family eats their turkey and whatnot around the noon hour, whereas I am used to an evening meal. Second, my mom usually concocts a different stuffing every year with all sorts of goodies in it, but Mimi’s version is more basic. Basic like just bread. Third — and this was the biggest cause of gasping — there were no green vegetables to be had. In all fairness, there were creamed pearl onions (ick), but there was not even a tossed salad or a green bean casserole to be seen.
Now, I am a very balanced eater. I take the food pyramid to heart even though I know it’s outdated, and I try to maintain a healthy selection of carbs, vegetables, and protein on my plate. I strive to have colorful meals because they are more likely to be more balanced, but I know that’s not a given. As I circled around the buffet during that Thanksgiving meal, I watched my plate fill with turkey, potatoes, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, and gravy. Translation: protein, carb, carb, carb/dairy, carb, and fat. Also, beige, beige, orange, beige, and brown.
I wanted to cry. Or go out and eat some grass.
But instead, I ate my beige meal silently. Don’t get me wrong, the food was excellent, but I felt my nutritional balance going all out of whack and screaming, “Where is my vitamin C? My iron? My folic acid? I need some roughage!”
The next year, I asked my mother-in-law if I could request a salad to be added to the menu. Mimi has a full slate of dishes that go in and out of the oven with military precision, so I knew that it would be a tough sell. I would have to be low-maintenance. “Nothing fancy,” I said, “Even a bagged salad with some baby carrots would be great. Something green. Is that possible at all?”
“Sure!” she said brightly. “I’ll just take care of the salad. It’s probably good for all of us.”
I went into my second in-lawed Thanksgiving with high hopes, but it turns out that my mother-in-law’s views of a salad are not quite the same as mine. She had made a tasty dish, to be sure, but it consisted mostly of broccoli slaw slivers, grated carrots, a gallon of Italian dressing, slivered almonds, and a nice, crunchy layer of uncooked ramen noodles on the top. It was, to my disappointment, a beige salad.
Ah, well. What can you do?
This year, I have given up on my dream of romaine lettuce and a vinaigrette — that elusive “something green.” JG keeps reminding me that “there’s green stuff,” referring to a perennial favorite dish. Yes, but it’s made of Jell-O and marshmallows, dear.
Post-Thanksgiving edit: Hallelujah! Green bean casserole came to the party!
12 comments
I feel like I NEED vegetables on Thanksgiving or I’ll crash halfway through the meal! AS’s family believes in warming up a can of beans, which barely counts for me. I need steamed vegetables with lemon and garlic, something totally fresh in flavor to contrast with all the heavy, cozy starches… guess I know what I’ll be bringing to Thanksgiving dinner forever and ever!
This year, my parents are coming to the city and we’re eating at a restaurant. I’ve pre-checked the menu and determined that there will be an appropriate balance of turkey, sides and vegetables. Phew.
I feel the same way about crashing, but napping is the immediate aftereffect of all of the carb-loading. The living room is covered with slumbering bodies not even an hour after the meal, so I don’t think the crash is something people want to avoid…
We have green bean casserole. That’s the only thing green. I try EVERY YEAR to get my mom to add salad. Even offering to bring it myself, and then I get shut down every year.
So I bring corn. And we have the green beans. And somehow, it’s all good. Even though I’d love a good salad.
I get shut down in bringing something, too, which has stopped me from just bringing the darn thing myself. I even considered stopping at the supermarket to get a crown of broccoli that I could trim into bite-size pieces for myself, but that seemed to cross the line of sanity.
You should offer to bring a dish and make that it. They’ll all love it !
I am not even kidding when I say that there is no room for an extra dish, much less a dreaded vegetable. Plus, I doubt if even 3 out of the 20 people would eat it…
This entry made me laugh (albeit inwardly, I’m at work) in some parts.
I really should get on board with following the Canada’s Food Guide, our equivalent of the Food Pyramid.
The Food Pyramid was so deeply ingrained in me as a child that I can’t buy in to any of the new-fangled nutritional models now. Despite my cravings for vegetables, I could never ever ever go carb-free. That is just wrong. It’s the whole bottom of the pyramid, people!
Joel almost died the first time he got a gander of my family’s idea of “vegetables”. canned corn dumped in a bowl, heated in the microwave. YUM!
Oh, my goodness. I am shaking my head. Though there is not a clear botanical definition of a vegetable (as opposed to a fruit, which requires seeds surrounded by flesh, meaning that most vegetables are actually fruit, technically), corn is definitely a CARBOHYDRATE. Now, I like it very much, but it doesn’t count!
Haha! CORN.
I always used to laugh at our Christmas dinners, because mum would swear by the greens.. but I didn’t LIKE greens. Bring on the good old “isn’t potato is a vegetable?” memories.
My sister and I knew not to bring that one up because our mom would lay the smack-down so fast your head would spin. If you were to load up your potato with broccoli and cheese, though, that was perfectly acceptable. Mm.
RA, you should come have Thanksgiving with my family.
We have turkey, ham, cornbread dressing, corn casserole, green bean casserole, sweet potato souffle’, greens, stewed tomatoes (one of my favorites- my aunt makes them and they are the best!), mashed potatoes, cranberry apple compote. And I know I’m forgetting stuff, but I am going into a food coma just thinking about it.
Don’t feel too bad about working Friday- I work in a hospital too and I am working. Although that’s because I work in patient care and my department isn’t closed Friday. Like some of the other departments. Boo hiss.
Oh, YUM. As much as I am drooling over your food, I have a feeling that JG would have a problem with me trekking down to Florida… I will think happy thoughts about your cornbread, green beans, and compote today.
Oh, I’m so with you on the veggies. I can actually say that I crave green food like broccoli or green beans, spinach, salad, asparagus, bok choy (oh, I’m making myself hungry just typing about it)…I don’t get how people’s digestive systems can work properly if they don’t eat something green every day. And corn? Seriously. I’ve heard that it has almost no nutritional value whatsoever. It shouldn’t be considered a vegetable if you ask me.
I absolutely crave vegetables like the ones you’ve listed. And you’re right — corn doesn’t count at all. It’s a grain, for goodness’ sake. It’s like calling rice a vegetable.
beige thanksgiving…too funny! thankfully my mother in law is SUCH a good cook. And there is always a salad AND at least one veggie that is not smothered in something beige.
The food is always very tasty, so I’m glad it’s not an issue of good versus bad food, you know? I guess my problem is more of a style thing, where I prefer some items over others. But a salad would be so nice…
Don’t you know that Thanksgiving is one of the days when you’re not ALLOWED to think about balanced meals and food pyramids and correct colors on the plate? 1 day (or a few days…) out of 365 isn’t that bad.
I’ve been so indoctrinated that I can’t consider a meal as good without being balanced and colorful, you know? It’s a sickness.
I felt the same way this year…there were onions, but other than that there were no “greens.” Well, I did make sugary whole berry cranberry sauce, but with the sugar content I’m not sure that it counts. And isn’t kind of gross how all of the foods just kind of ooze together and it suddenly doesn’t matter what combination of foods you eat together? Then for dessert I had a big plate of brown/orange/beige sweets, which also just oozed together…it was just one large plate of oozy sweet brownish glop. It was good, but a bit sickening at the same time. I felt so full it hurt. I’m really glad that Thanksgiving is only one day because, like you, I like healthy, balanced meals!
Oog. I don’t like my food to touch, so Thanksgiving is a bit of a nightmare for me in that respect. I’m glad that we’re back to normal at our house with a good supply of salad in the fridge!
I, too, was shocked at the early hour of feasting the first time I spent thanksgiving with Tim’s family. I think I even exclaimed out loud, “1:00? But it’s thanksgiving DINNER, not lunch!” I have since learned that for Tim’s parents, all fancy “dinners” are served early afternoon. And I still think it’s strange when we’re invited to a Sunday dinner and told to come around 1:30.
My family always makes a big breakfast on Thanksgiving, so there’s no way we’re hungry that early anyway. This year we breakfasted at 10am and feasted at 4pm. Green Bean Casserole abounded. It was pretty much perfect.
I tried the “Thanksgiving dinner” argument, and a dozen cousins quickly shot me down. Oh, well.
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