Read Online Born Round: A Story of Family, Food and a Ferocious Appetite by Frank Bruni - Free Book Online Page B

home, at which point, with enough prompting, they might help. When the kids do come home, tell them there’s some stuff in the rear of the car you’d like them to carry into the kitchen. When they haven’t budged a half hour later, tell them again. When they promise to get on it “during the next commercial,” commence strategic weeping. Thanksgiving requires you to use all the weapons at your disposal; besides, the stress is getting to you.
    T MINUS TWO DAYS —Back to the stores. There were things you didn’t get on the last trip, because you were worried about how well they’d keep. There were things you forgot. There were mistakes you caught when, on day T minus three, you spent two hours at the kitchen table reviewing your lists. Say to Dad, “You’re all set for tomorrow?” Hear him answer, “What?” Say, “The cannoli! The mozzarella!” Hear him answer, “Sheesh, I almost forgot.” Cry. He’s kidding, and you half-know that, but you need everybody to be operating with a peak sense of urgency.
     
    T MINUS ONE DAY —A new set of lists. A map, really. Plot a painstakingly detailed time line of what can be assembled in the hours before the guests arrive and what must be prepared after they arrive. So that you don’t get thrown off track or confused on the big day, prepare Post-it notes to be put on different bowls and pans and packages. Each Post-it note is an appointment, a set of instructions signaling destination (top oven, bottom oven, burner) and time (10 a.m., 11:15 a.m., 11:55 a.m.) and temperature (350 degrees, 425 degrees, medium heat). Turn the refrigerator and the counters into a yellow thicket of Post-it notes, then worry that you won’t be able to see and heed the individual trees for the forest. Look out the window, notice that Harry’s skateboard is still in the middle of the driveway, though he’s been told four times already to put it away, and scream at him that Grandma is going to step on it, break her hip and be rushed to the hospital, and if she dies it’s all his fault. Think about a glass of Chablis. It really might be time for a glass of Chablis.
     
    THANKSGIVING DAY, 11:30 TO 11:45 A.M. —The guests begin arriving, and you instantly begin feeding them. Pull two freshly made quiches out of the oven. Cut them into square-shaped pieces and put the pieces on platters and have Mark or Frank make himself atypically useful by passing them around. Have one of the children pass around a platter of chicken livers wrapped in bacon, too, and a separate platter of stuffed mushrooms as well. These supplement a tray of deviled eggs, another light beginning to a long day. Somewhere there’s a plate of little balls of mozzarella known as bocconcini ; somewhere else, some prosciutto and maybe some olives. Don’t forget the chilled shrimp! You cleaned and cooked four pounds of them on day T minus one, and you’re serving them with cocktail sauce you made at seven a.m., another lifesaver that could be prepared ahead of time.
     
    NOON —Hustle Dad into the kitchen so he can begin the carving process. The carving process could take up to an hour, because you’ve made both a twenty-eight-pound turkey and a separate nine-pound turkey breast so that there will not only be enough turkey for the main meal but enough left over for sandwiches later in the day. You must serve sandwiches later in the day.
     
    12:30 P.M. —Lay food on the buffet table. Somehow find space for separate bowls of corn, green peas, creamed onions, canned cranberry jelly (because some people prefer it to homemade), homemade cranberry sauce (because some people prefer it to canned), stovetop stuffing (same reasoning), real stuffing (ditto), mashed potatoes and pureed sweet potatoes with little marsh-mallows on top. Find additional room for two casserole dishes of manicotti. Then find more room for a broad tray of individual foil-wrapped yams, which you had to have in addition to the sweet potatoes (and the mashed