ALT-3 Breaking with Thanksgiving Tradition
A Vegetarian On Turkey Day
My daughter is a vegetarian married to a meat-eater. They have a bit of an arrangement that many other children of veggies have made with children of carnies. To my carnie son-in-law Thanksgiving Means Turkey, and my daughter goes along with that, as long as he cooks the bird while she makes the non-meat side dishes. I was talking to her on the phone Thanksgiving afternoon. She was standing in their kitchen as Scooter (the names have been changed to protect the carnivores, though, I ask myself, why?) was giving her a lesson about where the meat thermometer goes and how to tell when the turkey is done.
He left the kitchen in search of football or some such sporting event on TV and my daughter and I chatted. After awhile she said that the thermometer did whatever it was supposed to do (perhaps play Taps?) to tell her that the turkey was done. I heard her open the oven door and pull out the oven rack.She said, thoughtfully, that the turkey was supposed to be done, but something was definitely bothering her. She told me," the poor thing's legs are tied together and there is a pool of liquid from its crotch."
Droll as my darling daughter can be, I suppressed a surge of grossed-out laughter and cast my mind back to when my own mother used to cook turkey. I told her I thought it was probably done. She decided to call Scooter in to make the final diagnosis.
I mean, how does a woman who spent her childhood and teen years as far away from, dead turkeys recognize what meat-eaters would proudly term "pan drippings" or"au jus"?
When our kids lived with us, Thanksgiving usually meant home-made pizza with their own customized toppings. I never heard one of their neighborhood friends say, as they took themselves home to their Turkey with all the Trimmings, "nya, nya, nya, enjoy your pizzas while I go home to load up on gristle and Stove Top Stuffing." Indeed, they usually left with quite a wistful look to themselves as we wished them "Happy Thanksgiving!"
