THANKSGIVING IN BLANDING

It was so grand having almost everyone here for Thanksgiving (WE MISSED YOU, ALI AND ERIC). The Loa Community Center worked out very well. There was certainly plenty of room and those of you who know how to set up the TV to view pictures and movies did a great job. There was even a piano. We could have sung Thanksgiving songs and Christmas carols if we had wanted to do a good old fashioned type thing to amuse ourselves. The food was so-o-o extraordinarily good and there was plenty of it.

You all know Thanksgiving is my favorite Holiday. I love having my kids and grandkids here. You are all so dear to me. The more, the merrier. Having family and friends around is what makes Thanksgiving so special. Of course, having a lot of good food isn’t bad either, but it’s having all of you here that fills my heart with joy.

I know I told you that my next chapter would be about my Dad, but I’ve learned a lot in writing my memories of him. I can’t do it all in one installment. It may take three or four. There is so much to tell. So, I’m working on that and will make it available as soon as I’m satisfied with it. In the meantime, after such a fantastic Thanksgiving, with so much love and fun, I was reminded of Thanksgiving and Christmas when I was a child and I thought you may like to hear about that. When I used to tell my kids stories of my growing up years, they liked to call my reminiscing “Poor deprived mother stories.” I really don’t think I felt deprived, it was more a feeling that Thanksgiving and Christmas could have been more. And, I don’t mean more gifts or more food. I’ll explain that more, later. And, Juli suggested it would be appropriate at this time. Thanks, Juli.

My folks always had chickens, so what did we have for Thanksgiving dinner? Chicken, of course. I think I remember my mother roasting a chicken once but not on Thanksgiving. What I remember on Thanksgiving was chicken and noodle soup. We had potatoes, occasionally mashed, but usually boiled. When we got them on our plate we mashed them and put the chicken and noodle soup over it. It was not thin chicken noodle soup like you get in a can of Campbell chicken noodle soup. It was somewhat thicker. I was telling Juli about my mom’s chicken noodle soup and we came to the conclusion that it was thicker, more like thin gravy than broth. My mom made her own noodles. It was quite a process. She made the dough with flour, eggs and butter. I’m not sure what else. I may have her recipe somewhere. I’ll have to do some digging to find it. When it was the right consistency to roll out she would flour her board and rolling pin and roll the dough almost paper thin (maybe to the thickness of four or five sheets of 20 lb. paper). She’d take a sharp knife and cut the thin dough into strips about two inches wide (they were the length of the rolled out dough); she’d dust the dough with a little more flour, pick one two-inch wide strip and lay it on top of the next strip. She’d continue doing that until she had about six strips piled on top of each other. It was the most amazing thing. She never measured the width of the strips and yet, when she had them piled up, each strip was almost exactly the same width as the rest of the strips in the pile. Then, she’d make another pile of about six strips and so on until all the dough was in neat piles. After that, she’d cut the piles of strips crosswise into narrow strips that were, maybe, about a sixteenth of an inch wide by two inches long. She didn’t make wide egg noodles. The reason her Chicken noodle soup was thicker than Campbell’s was because of the extra flour she dusted the dough with to keep the noodles from sticking to each other.

Mom usually made the noodles two or three days ahead of when she planned to use them so they could dry. Thanksgiving morning, Daddy would choose a chicken, chop its head off and pull off as many feathers as he could, then present the chicken to my mother and she’d take it from there. There were normally a few feathers (small, hair-like feathers that couldn’t be pulled out) on the bird so Mom would roll up a sheet or two of newspaper from corner to corner so it would be long; she’d light the end of the rolled up paper in the stove and use the burning paper to burn off the remaining feathers. After that she’d work on the pin feathers that were still in the skin. When that was completed, she’d cut the chicken open and get the guts out, being careful to save the heart, liver and gizzard. Of course, the gizzard is what digests the food the chicken eats so she’d have to cut it open and dispose of the contents of the gizzard. Oh, before I forget. For those of you who don’t know: Chickens eat small pieces of gravel (grit). Chickens have no teeth and depend entirely on a different method of reducing roughage into digestible particles. The grit goes into the gizzard and helps grind up the food that comes to the gizzard so the food can be absorbed by the chicken (to keep him or her crowing, clucking or laying eggs). Obviously, for those of you who enjoy gizzards, you can be happy that someone opens the gizzard and removes the material contained within. Otherwise, you’d be seeing your Dentist frequently. Personally, I’ve never liked the texture of the gizzard or heart. I notice, however, that several of you who were here for Thanksgiving do like those parts. And, yes, I do love deep fried chicken livers.

After Mom cleaned and washed the chicken, she’d cut it into pieces: Drumsticks, wings, thighs, two back pieces, the wishbone and two breast pieces and into the pot it would go, skin and all. I don’t know about you but I do not care for boiled chicken skin. After it boils it becomes rubbery and slick. I shudder when I think of getting a piece of boiled chicken skin in my mouth. The texture was most displeasing to me. My Dad loved it. And, by the way, my parents were totally “old school” when it came to food. You were expected to eat what was on your plate: “Clean your plate!” “Waste not, want not!” and so on. Hey, I loved the noodles and I loved the chicken meat but oh my, the chicken skin was a different story. If we had had a dog and if he had been allowed in the house, I could have fed it to him under the table. Mom didn’t like dogs much so we didn’t have dogs (my brother, Durant, had a dog for a short time but that’s another story for another day). And, if we had had a dog, it would most certainly, never been allowed in the house. When I was young and my mother or dad dished up my food I had to take what came but as I became old enough to serve myself, the chicken and noodles were much more enjoyable.

So, we had chicken noodle soup over potatoes, which I really love, but I remember wishing we could have a turkey like the families in the story books at school and like the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving. (I understand there are several theories as to whether the Pilgrims really did have turkey.) If turkeys were available, and they must have been, because other people in Blanding had turkey, but my parents would never have been able to afford one.

Okay, so what else did we eat. We most assuredly had baked or stewed squash, or carrots, good homemade whole wheat bread with good homemade butter, probably some green beans or peas because Mom had bottled vegetables. We usually had pie. Not apple pie, though we certainly had plenty of apples. We had squash pie. I mentioned in my Halloween story about squash pie---it was sweetened and Mom may have added egg and milk to it before it was baked, but there were no spices in it so it tasted pretty bland. But the whipped cream on top was delicious. You may ask why there were no spices. That question deserves an answer so I will tell you briefly why. My Dad had been diagnosed with ulcers some years before (and he was actually in the hospital for treatment—I don’t know how long he was there); the doctors told him not to eat spices, so he never ate spices again; not pepper, either. There is more to the story but that will come at a later time. Also, occasionally we had a lemon meringue pie. Sometimes, instead of lemon pie, Mom would make her Eggless Cake two or three days ahead of time so we’d have some of that for dessert. I really liked the Eggless Cake. The Cake didn’t require as much lard as a pie crust. Mom’s pies were never that great. The crusts were a little tough. Here’s the reason for that. Mom had to make her own lard, which she rendered out of the fat from the pig we slaughtered each fall. I don’t know whether it was possible to buy something like Crisco. If it was, we didn’t because we couldn’t afford it. I remember when I was in my teens, we did occasionally buy a can of Crisco; if it was available before that I really can’t say. Anyway, back to the lard. It was time consuming work to render the grease out of the fat. We had several metal buckets she poured it into when it was done but, remember, however much lard she got had to last us a year---until the next pig was slaughtered. That’s why Mom ‘s pie crusts were a little less flaky than they might have been---she didn’t add enough to the pie crust to make it tender and flaky. I can understand her reluctance.

The food we ate was good food but not the feast we all make for our family Thanksgivings now. However, that is not what I meant when I said that I always wanted something more. When all my children and grandchildren get together for Thanksgiving now, it is a big celebration in and of itself. The food is grand and good and tasty and wonderful but it is the fun we all have when we get together. It’s the hugs and kisses and laughter and horse-play. It’s the catching up on things of the past year. It’s the “being together”. I love that and look forward to it from year to year. When I was a child, even when an older brother or sister came home for Thanksgiving, there wasn’t the fun and good times that ALL OF YOU bring to our gatherings. Oh, I loved my brothers and sisters and I was always excited to see them, but somehow there was a certain reserve. Of course, I was extremely shy so I didn’t add anything to the party. We had tons of relatives in Blanding but our family never got together with another family to celebrate. I think that may have helped. Perhaps if there had been more people there we’d have had more fun or something.

Fortunately, all of that changed when I was 14. My Aunt Jenny, who lived across the street north of us came to our house and asked my Mom if we’d like to get together for Thanksgiving that year. Mom agreed and thus, a short-lived tradition began. I really don’t remember what we furnished for the meal but we went over to Aunt Jenny and Uncle Ben’s house (it was larger than ours). Aunt Jenny had roasted two chickens and made dressing to go with them. And Aunt Jenny and her daughter, Delsa, made pies. I don’t remember what kind but I remember two kinds. We may have taken mashed potatoes and a vegetable---I wish I could remember more of the details of the food but I do remember how much fun it was. Finally, Thanksgiving seemed what I thought it should be. Aunt Jenny was funny and talkative. Uncle Ben liked me a lot and joked with all of us. Actually, Uncle Ben was on his best behavior, as I recall. Sometimes he could be ornery. He was never ornery to me and he and Daddy got along well. (They were brothers, after all.) But frequently, he was ornery to Aunt Jenny (that’s another story which I will tell you at another time). It was a fun Thanksgiving.

When I was 14, our neighbor across the street to the east (Vivian Redd) asked me to work for her: Cleaning house, ironing, tending children, etc. Generally, I was a mother’s helper. I was at her house to help on Tuesday before Thanksgiving and she mentioned planning to cook a turkey for their dinner. I said, “I’ve never tasted turkey. Does it taste like chicken?” She seemed quite amazed that I had never tasted turkey and said, “Okay, you come over on Friday. I’ll save a piece just for you.” I was really excited. I went to her house on Friday, and sure enough, she had saved a piece for me. It was delicious. So, Thanksgiving Day of 1947, I had my first taste of turkey.

The next three years we had Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Jenny’s house. It was very fun and memorable for me. I don’t know whether they continued the tradition after I graduated and left home. All I know is: I finally felt “complete”. Thanksgiving was, at least a little bit, like it was supposed to be. I think it was at that time I realized Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. It still is.

Grandpa and I got married in November of 1951 and headed straight for the El Toro Marine Base by Santa Ana, California. That’s where we would live for the next six weeks. We lived ½ block from the beach at Newport Beach, California. Talk about a new experience for a naive little country girl who had rarely been anywhere. We had some friends there and we all decided to get together for Thanksgiving Dinner. We had it at our apartment and I did most of the cooking. I knew absolutely nothing about cooking a turkey and very little about making stuffing. Certainly, I was not a pie maker at that time, although I do believe we had apple pie. I did know how to make rolls so we had hot rolls. Frankly, I can’t remember the menu we had. I just know that the turkey turned out okay, as did the rest of the meal. Two of the guests were unmarried. Perhaps they brought the pies. One other couple was there: Dave and Loral Erickson. She was only 16 and knew even less than I. I believe we had yams of some kind (not the wonderful yams and pineapple we have at OUR Thanksgiving dinner). I may have asked one of the ladies in the Ward at Santa Ana how to make them. Maybe that’s how I was able to cook the turkey, as well.

I do remember it was fun and I was very proud that I had been able to cook most of the food and that it was actually edible.

The next year, Grandpa and I lived in Albany, Georgia. There was a wonderful lady in our little branch who was a fantastic cook. Her name was Sister Williams. She invited us and the Elders to Thanksgiving dinner. Again, it was how Thanksgiving should be: family, friends and food. In 1953 we were invited to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my sister, Grace and her family. I believe my sister Ora and her family were there, it was a big, noisy, fun crowd. In 1954, Grandpa and I were in Seattle, Washington. Grandpa transferred to the University of Washington to continue his study of Architecture. We were alone in 1954 and I cooked dinner, again, but we were invited to friend’s homes in 1955 and 1956.

We came back to Utah in March of 1957. I got pregnant with Bret that month and the following Thanksgiving we had Thanksgiving dinner with Grandpa’s family. That’s when I first tasted SNOW PUDDING. The rest is history. Bret was born December 21, 1957 and we have seen many wonderful Thanksgivings since then---not the least of which was the one we just celebrated November 22, 2007. Thank you all for coming to Loa and making an old lady so very happy.

I will tell you about my growing up Christmases in a later installment.

Now: Happy December Birthdays: Jack, December 11; Bret, December 21; Jackie, December 22; Nathan, December 25; Kadi, December 31. Hope you have a great day.

I love you all. I’ll be back later with more.