Happy Throwback Thanksgiving!

This is not my newest book. I published a memoir in March and have another manuscript simmering – buried under a stack of notepads in my office. However, this baby-book developed from a sentimental dream and identified itself as my first-born. Its theme of gratitude seems as important today as any other year.

For nearly forty years, my family celebrated Thanksgiving as THE most important holiday of the year. The crowd typically included immediate siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and stray friends, staying over for three to ten days. The only year we all agreed to cancel our gathering was 2001. It was too soon after the 9-11 tragedy and many of us traveled ten or more hours, folks just didn’t want to be away from their homes. On the phone, after the weekend, everyone regretted canceling.

Sometimes we ate wild turkey – sometimes elk or venison. Sometimes we exchanged plates of sweets to begin December’s Christmas preparations. Sometimes we’d travel through deep snow and a deep freeze. Sometimes we’d pick fresh sage for the dressing. Always, we’d eat pie. If you planned to attend, your favorite pie would be added to the list of homemade pleasures. Mincemeat and sour cream raisin became standard. The plethora of beautiful pies and loving people made it a delightful yearly event.

In 2012, the head count in my household changed to one, and grandkids’ ages pressed toward the teens. So much of life as I knew it was disappearing like the steam from a teapot. I couldn’t make it stay, so I tried to capture tender moments and precious people on paper.  I felt driven to tell their story and pass down particular recipes interwoven with our particular Thanksgiving customs and western prairie culture.

Any library has shelves of cookbooks, but they’re just recipes. My focus had to be on our Thanksgiving and our family recipes – especially pie. My book would be packed with gratitude and stories told around the Thanksgiving tables of the last four decades and be tightly linked to the scrumptious foods these people created. Family recipes with distinct modifications are vital to our unique custom. When someone carried in a bowl of Aunt Ruth’s Salad, everyone knew what that meant.

Each recipe in this book reflects the story of its maker. Food we create or compose with our own hands partly tells who we are and are becoming. That year was the right time for family stories to be told. This year is a good time to look at such stories again. Then, like today, I realize the truth of the slogan: This too shall pass.

Because the future is never guaranteed; because the present disappears in a flash; because 2020 is a turning point in many families’ holiday norm, like 2012 was for me, today is again the right time to share this book.

My adult children have copies of Family Feasts: pies and people, but still call me for recipes. I don’t tell them its page number, but I still share the stories of those who brought it to the family. However we celebrate next week, we’ll be grateful. And they will possess the recipes and heritage they helped build and, hopefully, will carry on.

I hope you’ll get your own book and make it sticky with your particular ingredients.

With gratitude, me