John F. Kennedy
Thanksgiving dinners sitting around our Staten Island dining room table with my parents, a bachelor uncle, and my five siblings are some of the fondest memories of my childhood in New York. My mom would begin cooking early in the morning and the house would fill with luscious aromas. We kids usually watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on tv. Mom roasted a giant turkey and cooked all of the fixings—gravy, bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed turnips, creamed white onions, and green beans for the main course served in the late afternoon. She baked pumpkin, mince, and apple pies for dessert. Cold appetizers, like shrimp cocktail, gherkins, olives, and celery stuffed with cream cheese were prepared and served in the early afternoon. Believe it or not, after that carb-heavy large meal, we enjoyed sandwiches filled with sliced turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce for an evening snack.
The year I became engaged, we did something different to welcome my fiancé for Thanksgiving. My uncle hosted the family for dinner at his home on the Jersey Shore and we all enjoyed some touch football by the bay before dinner.
After I married and moved to Massachusetts, my husband and I, and eventually our two children, drove down to the island each Thanksgiving weekend. Offers to help Mom cook were usually refused, but we all helped with the cleanup. She was proud of her skill, and she always doubted my ability to cook. One year, we left early Thanksgiving morning and took the ferry into Manhattan with the kids to see the Macy’s parade in person. It was fun but freezing cold. I wanted the kids to have warm extended-family memories, but the holiday traffic often dampened their enthusiasm when the usual five-hour travel time stretched to eight.
When my husband’s job took us to Italy for two-and-a-half years, it was those Thanksgiving dinners with family that I missed most about America. In 1979 in Napoli, whole turkeys were not sold in the supermarkets. After some inquiries, I was told to go to the central outdoor market in the city. I was excited when I found a vendor who would order one for me, and I agreed to pick it up the day before Thanksgiving. Several days before, however, the area was rocked by a powerful earthquake and large sections of the city were under rubble. I risked driving to the market on the given day, but the vendor said no shipments were getting through. I figured I would cook a chicken for the four of us, but good friends who worked for the US Department of Defense were able to get two small turkeys, and they invited us to join them. We had an eight-person “found family” Thanksgiving dinner and we were all grateful to be alive and safe from the quake’s epicenter.
The following year, our family of four decided to drive to Firenze for the Thanksgiving weekend. Since it had more American tourists and expats than Napoli, our intention was to find a restaurant that offered a Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Only one high-end hotel had one for La Festa del Ringraziamento and the price was outrageous, so we changed the plan. No biggie. Having Italian food was not a hardship. On Thanksgiving morning, we made a side trip to the nearby town of Prato. I had been wanting to visit because of its textile heritage. We explored until we were getting hungry, only to find that many of the restaurants were closed midday. The one that we found open was Chinese, and that was our most unconventional Thanksgiving meal.
Upon returning to the States, we continued to travel to the New York island for the holiday, but several years later, in 1986, my husband’s job took us to Munich Germany for six years. We mostly cooked with local ingredients, but one year we found a turkey and invited German friends to experience our traditional meal. They still remember it to this day because turkey was uncommon there.
After our return to the U.S. in 1992, we continued the traditional visits to the island, but one year, illness prevented Mom from cooking. We still made the trip down, spent time with her in the hospital, and my sister hosted the family get-together.
Both of my parents passed in the early 2000s, and our new traditions were centered in Massachusetts. We ran or walked the Feaster Five Road race in Andover before dinner each Thanksgiving with friends. Some runners wore costumes, including our daughter who dressed as the Grinch in 2014 and as Jovie the Elf in 2017. One friend wore a turkey hat. Some years we had sun, and some years we had sleet or rain, but it was always an invigorating way to work up an appetite.
When we moved to Florida in 2018, we missed participating in that race, but in 2020, Covid had an upside. The Feaster Five encouraged participation from afar. We registered, documented our five-mile walk on our local park trails wearing Feaster Five scarves covering our mouths, and received participation medals in the mail.
Here in Florida, we’ve been fortunate to receive invitations to join our neighbors’ large extended family some years. When we do cook at home, we have our appetizers on the outdoor patio, sometimes with a family member or two. We also have made menu adjustments since not everyone eats meat now, including me. I still cook turkey, but I also serve a fish entrée and have eased up on the number of starchy carbs.
Wherever we have celebrated through the years, we have been fortunate to spend time with family and friends, and we have a lot to be grateful for.