By Rawlins Gilliland, KERA 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-537921.mp3
Dallas, TX –
I love Fall, knowing the holidays will follow. Trouble is I'm already dreading those family dinners. Why? Because. I am the only one in my family who can cook. And it's not my year.
With the exception of my maternal grandmother, the women in my family have proven conclusively that chauvinist notions that women are predisposed to be talented in the kitchen are a hoax. That's why I learned to cook in the first place - as a defense mechanism. Actually, it wasn't like Mother couldn't cook. It's just that when she shocked us by using the stove, a typical meal was child abuse: sweet breads in vermouth, parsnips and a watercress salad. Pickled tongue?
Isn't that what all kids yearn for when they come home from school?
You can see why I went to a neighbor, asking Mrs. Farley to show me how to make tuna salad. Oh, Mother made tuna salad. But she put minced clams and Worcestershire Sauce in it. And capers. Trust me; long before the Valley Girls said it, I knew what it was to think, "Gag me with a spoon".
Then there was my beloved Aunt Blanche. She loved to cook. Poor Blanche. Most of her offerings were toxic waste. One Thanksgiving, her turkey stunned even Blanche. It was like a dried arrangement. So she attempted a beef rump roast. Which when she unveiled it at the table, resembled an anvil or an antique leather throw pillow. All I could think was, "That cow died twice".
Now the meat assassin's mantle has fallen to my sister Ann. And it's her year to serve Thanksgiving lunch. One memorable meal, she mail ordered one of those "Turduckens", ostensibly made with turkey, duck and something - a sort of mystery meat pi ata. Apparently she inherited our Aunt Blanche's oven, because you could have written poems on that Turducken, it was that flat and dry. Like a papyrus scroll from a Dead Sea cave.
Next, she ordered a smoked turkey. I love smoked turkey, and was certain she couldn't harm it. Until she doused it in Wishbone Italian, smothered it with Rotel Velveeta, then buried it alive in chopped olives. And, despite arriving fully cooked, microwaved it until the "garnish bubbled". That once promising bird had become a dehydrated gargoyle pizza nacho.
Side dishes? It's "open a can" or "boil-in-the-bag" time. Then Ann "doctors" it. "Doctoring it" generally means adding Tabasco and inevitably, more olives. If God forbid my sister pre-deceases me, I suggest her casket cover be made from olives as the only thing I have not seen her put them on is the Sara Lee cheesecake. That screams for those green maraschino cherries that turned her canned ham into a St. Patrick's Day shocker. This woman sets a gorgeous table. But once the food lands on it, it's like cadavers in a throne room: sad, but pretty.
Maybe I've stumbled upon a portion control diet craze: "Ann Russell's Recipes for Holiday Weight Loss!" Meals where you eat all you can before pushing your plate back. Where pound-packing temptation melts away. Like that Cheez Whiz on her oven-to-table Tator Tots.
Rawlins Gilliland is a writer from Dallas.
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