With Thanksgiving only a few days away, I remember the Thanksgivings past, those at my grandmother’s table and those at our table.
Several years ago, we passed around a journal and asked everybody to write down what they were thankful for on this day. There were three there then that are not with us anymore, two have gone home and one for another reason. I miss these people from my family every day but especially on this day that I am so reminded of my blessings.
Some of us wrote we were thankful for our families, our good fortune in life, our jobs, our faith, and some of my children said how thankful they were for the parents we have been. Oh, this makes a mama thankful.
I want to leave something, maybe a legacy, for my children and grandchildren. I want them to remember how much I loved them, how much they enjoyed the meals I prepared for them, how I never let them leave without saying “I love you,” and especially how thankful we are that God gave us each child and grandchild.
I do my best to duplicate and reproduce the Thanksgivings I enjoyed as a child growing up at my grandmother’s house and table. She had a very long planked table with straight chairs and a bench on the back side and on one end. I sat on a little wooden box my granddaddy made for me on the short bench.
All my aunts and uncles and cousins and anybody that happened by at lunch time sat around the big table heavily laden with food. You could barely understand the conversations as it seemed everyone talked at once. We seldomly saw all the together so we had so much news to catch up with. It’s the same at our table today.
My grandmother always had her cornbread dressing. I use her recipe, with a few additions of my own every time I made the delicious dish. My family loves this just as much as I did when she made it so many years ago. Along with her dressing, she always cooked a big hen, maybe two, we never had turkey, and she incorporated her hen into the cornbread dressing. I don’t do this -- mine is served separately. One of her desserts was her buttermilk chocolate cake. I am making my Cocoa Cola cake, but it is chocolate.
After lunch we plan to do just as we always would do, sit around and talk for a while about deer hunting, inflation, the government, our families, and those we miss. The thing I am thankful for this year is the fact that we can get together this year. We didn’t last year’s meal because of COVID.
I hope you and your family can have a Thanksgiving just like the ones you grew up with and make memories.
Mine and My Grandmother’s Cornbread Dressing
Boil 2 chickens until done in 8 quarts of water, 1 onion, 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, and 1 stick of butter.
Sautee one big onion and 2 cups chopped celery until tender. 2 large skillets of cornbread, 2 packages of garlic/butter croutons, 3-4 slices day old bread, 3 tablespoons poultry seasoning, 4 tablespoons dried sage, 4 beaten eggs, salt and pepper and broth from chickens. 1 large can cream of mushroom and 1 large can cream of chicken soup. Mix together. If not juicy enough wash out cans of soup and add until right consistency. Bake 350 degrees for 1 hour.
I like to freeze mine for a couple of weeks and let the flavors “marry.”
