Once upon a time, I was a vegetarian. I’m not sure why. Oh, wait, I remember. I’d had my wisdom teeth extracted and I ended up not eating for the entire summer I turned 15. I got blissfully anorexic. When I started eating again, I never added meat back in.
Well, not never. I think I went about three years without eating meat. I ate seafood, since that didn’t walk around or get milked or anything, but I was a pretty dang good vegetarian, I think.
No one ever really noticed that I didn’t eat turkey at Thanksgiving. I’d eat dressing and gravy, so why should anyone expect that I had a little wedge of white meat hidden under my cranberry sauce? I guess I wasn’t a great vegetarian after all. There’s turkey broth in the gravy, right?
Oh well.
My most traumatic Thanksgiving dinner took place in Calabassas, California, in 1993. I was away from home for the first Thanksgiving of my young life. My boss, a musical artist manager, fancied himself my LA-based father figure, and called my mother to tell her I’d be having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at his home.
I asked if I could bring anything, as good southern girls do, and was told just to bring myself; his wife would have everything prepared. Truth be told, his wife was more of a supervisor in that kitchen; directing traffic made up of four non-English-speaking employees. I chose to hang out in the study with my boss, a record label exec, and Meat Loaf’s business manager. I had more in common with them, somehow.
Dinner is served. Why are there raisins and walnuts in my cranberry sauce? How is oyster stuffing considered a complementary dressing for turkey? And where are the mashed potatoes? Where is the candied marshmallow glaze across the sweet potatoes? Where is all the beloved Thanksgiving starch? And why are we drinking wine? I’m expecting iced tea so sweet a spoon stands up in the glass.
I miss home.
Give me over-cooked green beans, five different casserole dishes, and cranberry sauce with rings on it, fresh from the can. Then, I’ll be able to pass out after Thanksgiving dinner like every other loyal American former vegetarian: properly stuffed, in front of the television, hoping to be woken up for pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and banana pudding with Nilla Wafers.
Tiramisu is for communists.