My Private Recipe For a Great Thanksgiving

With family, friends, and some dogs, who needs that secret recipe for cranberry sauce?

When I sat down to write this piece about Thanksgiving I looked for an easy out. I'm not much for gentle holiday sentiment - I've lived too long and seen too much - so this is no simple assignment for me. I know how trying Thanksgiving can be for many; those without families, those far from home, and those who nurture a delusion about the gathering of the tribe being a time for endless love and comfort, their minds filled with that wonderful Norman Rockwell painting of the family celebrating together in perfect love at the groaning table. Now we all know better than that. Thanksgiving can be Hell, or Heaven, and more often a combination of both. Thinking that I could get away with offering a recipe in place of a personal piece, I went to my wife and asked her for her great recipe for cranberry sauce - one of the seasonal culinary delights enjoyed by my family - hoping to share that recipe with the readers of this post. She looked at me coolly and declined to share. Hers was a simple no, uttered softly, without malice, but definitely a no. She regarded me with a look I had last seen on her late mother, Henrietta, an otherwise generous woman who kept her own council for over ninety three years, taking with her to the grave the secrets of a superb noodle pudding and a pot roast that defies all description.

Unlike many who write for this post, I don't cook. I am of that generation of men who can - if forced to - sear a steak on a grill - scramble some eggs in a pan - or boil some pasta in a pot. I am, however, excellent at cutting up a slab of cheese, opening wine bottles and offering family toasts. But there it ends. I say this without shame or pride. Although I have a tremendous interest in eating, I have almost none in cooking, and regard those pages of the newspaper which devote themselves to culinary arts as a crime against trees. For me, Rachel Ray is a cheerful, pretty, pleasingly pudgy young woman, who might better spend her time reading from that great new translation of War and Peace than passing out half hour cooking tips. Now my wife is one of those great natural cooks, someone who doesn't need Ms. Ray or a Julia Childs to inspire her; someone who can put together a fine meal with whatever is at hand in the kitchen larder. But none of this flattery will get her to release that recipe. She sure can keep a secret. I know this after many years of marriage. She would have made a great spy: she's beautiful, loyal, courageous, and smart. But she won't give up that recipe. I dare say water-boarding couldn't get it out of her, although the threat of having to watch George W Bush in another pusillanimous television address just might. I know that her cranberry delight has something to do with whole cranberries, a cut up orange, walnuts, pineapple and ingredient X - something that always requires a last minute trip to the market because one of the ingredients is missing - but how much of each she uses and why it ends up as manna for the gods, I don't have a clue. So I'll have to give you something more personal than a recipe for this holiday.

We are going to my younger son Chris's house in Westchester, New York, for the holiday. Now Chris and his wife Lise are also great cooks - and it's a joy to have them prepare the dinner for our family. Our guests will include my older son, Nick, and his daughter, my two year old grand-daughter Vivian, my niece Mindy and her family, as well as our friend Allan, with two dogs, Kali and Sam to add to the confusion under-foot. My overweight Abyssinian cat Byron will be left at home, hating as he does all forms of movement, other than hopping on my bed to wake me early for his breakfast, and skidding about on the country kitchen floor chasing a field mouse. It shall be a grand Thanksgiving. At least it will be for me. These past years have come with the usual share of trials and tribulations, but I am grateful for having these years and for the friends who have made my life better for knowing them. Among these friends are some magnificent people who have since died. I'll start with my late composer friend, Wally Harper, with whom I wrote two musicals. From Wally I learned a new craft, writing lyrics, long after I thought I could not learn anything new. Wally helped me to recapture the joy of creating - something I thought I had lost. He was so much wicked good fun. Another late friend was Thommie Walsh, who choreographed one of our shows at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Thommie died recently - all too young - and I will write more about him in another piece soon. He was one of the original cast members of A Chorus Line - a great character - and a delight to know. And I am grateful for having shared my childhood and some of my adult life with my late sister Simone, a woman of wit and style and charm - one who added to the delights of my life by being a natural comfort giver, a truth-teller and a friend.

Not all of the people who make me grateful at Thanksgiving are gone. There's John and Joan at Theatre Building Chicago, who have been an endless source of support for my work and a joy to know. The list of my living friends is long and pleasing to me but I can't mention all of you because I'm in a rush to get this finished before my grand-daughter visits this morning and I have to get out the Play-Doh, but you know who you are, and I am grateful for the pleasure of knowing you.

Most of all, there's the joy I have known because of my close living family. Aside from my wife who prefers to remain nameless, there are our two amazingly smart and caring sons, Nick and Chris, who have inherited their mother's loyalty, and thank God, her looks. And there's Lise, my lovely, multi-gifted daughter-in-law, so beautiful in all ways. But if truth be told, I am especially grateful for my brilliant two and half year old grand-daughter, Vivian. I'd like nothing more than to regale you with tales of her talents, although my wife would hush me saying, "Sherman, you're being a bore." And I would be. So I won't tell you that Vivian - this infant phenomena - can count to a hundred, recognize words, or that she sings "Twinkle Twinkle" in perfect pitch with the bravura style of an Ethel Merman, and shows so much natural kindness towards people and animals that she has made these past two years of my life something very wonderful.

And I am also grateful for the Huffington Post which offers me a fine platform to let off steam so that this grumpy old guy doesn't explode in a puff of smoke during the remaining months of our Bush catastrophe. May yours be a great Thanksgiving. Drive safe, be kind to each other if you can, and if you can't, try to limit the struggle to a fight over that turkey drumstick.

Love, Sherman

Comments

[robertsolotaire]

I can cook, and often do. My premier dish is a great veggie lasagna. Beyond that I steam, when cooking for myself, which is probably why I regularly devour every morsel in the Times' Dining section. It's a mouthwatering vicarious pleasure. For me it's what some might derive from pornography. So, plant a tree and keep "Dining" alive.

As for being turned off when a bore I have a similiar reminder from friend Dana who has kept alive a line of her mother's by saying "You can do better than that."

[jonrobinbaitz]

I, for one, am charmed and delighted and disarmed by your posts, Mr. Yellen. They are a tonic. I hope you've kept a diary, and selfishly hope you consider it (or a memoir) worth casting out, like bread upon the waters.
Happy thanksgiving, to you and yours, and sorry for the public display of mawkishness.