Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Today’s Prompt: What was your worst Thanksgiving food fail?

My head is filled with all of the big things today, so I was tempted to skip this prompt and write about something important. Then I remembered that Thanksgiving dinner is my favorite meal of the year so of course it is an important prompt. Plus, I really need to slow down the other big things running around my brain. So here it goes.

There was the Thanksgiving of 1992 that I spent in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with my new-found friends in the LSU Political Science graduate school program. They insisted we cook a goose. It was at least 80 degrees. The goose took a long time and the side dishes were instant mashed potatoes and canned corn. It was all a ruse for those men to watch football on our big tv and try to get us to do the dishes. I’m pretty sure I spent most of the day reading Eric Voegelin and considering a career change. On the bright side, the next day my roomie and I went to an authentic Cajun deep-fried turkey event hosted by her father. That was MUCH better.

There was the year somewhere between 1988-1992 that my aunt decided to switch up from a turkey dinner buffet to a sit down meal. With courses. For like 18 people. Okay. Then I realized I was being served a course of tomato soup which I absolutely despise. I passed on the soup, but had to sit there at this long table filled with conservative men who delighted in tormenting me with various rightwing barbs, listening to the slurps while the aroma of the turkey hovered in the air. They always made me lead the prayer and I always prayed we could skip the soup.

Fast forward to now where we spend most Thanksgivings with Laura’s family, either at her mom’s house or her brother’s house. Both are good cooks. Both are also controlling cooks, so we always end up assigned to bring the bread. 8 times out of 10, we forget it on the counter. Yes, one year the dogs ate the bread. But sometimes we remember the bread and have occasionally found a salted butter pressed into a turkey form. I like to chop off that turkey’s head and scare the kids. Sometimes we go rogue and bring a pie. Baked by someone else, but still.

The good thing about dinner at her brother’s house is that he lives 2 miles away so we can return home to get the bread, sometimes before we even arrive and have to admit that we did it again. Her mother lives 2 counties away so that’s not an option.

We do like to have our own private Thanksgiving as a family, so we order a lovely take-out meal from Bistro-to-Go and heat it all up on Friday or Saturday. Support local small business. Bistro-to-Go also pays a living wage to all employees. And, damn, it is good food.

The up and down side to being the lesbian relatives is that no one expects us to cook meals for large groups of family and no one really consults us about times/locations. We show up and entertain the kids. Plus, with always having elderly animals, we can leave whenever we need to do so because someone always needs to be let outside, giving medication or fed. So when my fed-up-ometer hits the red area, I just say “This has been so lovely, but we have to get home to the critters” and Ledcat knows what I mean. This works in all scenarios. Who can argue with the needs of a 21-year-old cat at home?

So here’s hoping we remember the bread this year! Maybe I’ll get fancy and order a pumpkin roll, too!