Thanksgiving

Adult Children, All Poems, Family, Food, Holidays, Mother Love, Thanksgiving

Pecan Pie

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Some people associate Thanksgiving with turkey.

Others with cranberry sauce, stuffing.

Still others with the Macy’s parade.

For me, pecan pie is the hallmark.

A culinary bonding experience.

Between me and my daughter.

Anticipating pecans soaked in corn syrup, eggs, vanilla.

Baked in a pâte brisée crust.

Till the filling puffs in the oven.

Nuts on top, toasted; inside, runny.

But she surprised me in September when asked about dessert.

Said she wanted lemon cake.

So, I made cake instead of pie.

Which we ate on the eve of the holiday.

Noting its lightness, tang.

But the morning of Thanksgiving, I sensed agitation.

She insisted on walking with me to Whole Foods.

To purchase a pecan pie.

Entering the store, we both felt relief.

The problem could be solved.

Our connection preserved.

But no pecan pie in the bakery.

None in the freezer.

A stocking clerk affirmed they were sold out.

Though pumpkin pies abounded.

Roseanne wrinkled brows.

Tried to puzzle out how to fix the breach.

Buy candied pecans?

Sprinkle them on ice cream?

Buy syrupy pecan or walnut topping?

Or buy a frozen crust?

Make the filling at home?

Which is what we did.

No rolling pastry.

Just mixing filling.

Pouring it into the most perfect bed.

Voilà, only an hour later,

the pie was browned, complete.

Relationship repaired with ease.

Disquietude in retreat.

 

Lynn Benjamin

November 30, 2023

 

 

Adolescence, All Poems, Family, Grandchildren, Holidays, Love, Thanksgiving

For As Long as I Can Remember

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For as long as I can remember, Black Friday was a tradition.

Day-after-Thanksgiving sales.

Appearance of Santa Claus.

But, in recent years, I’ve shied away.

Why? you ask.

Crowds.

Pandemic.

Reports of intermittent violence.

Ease of ordering online.

This year, an aberration.

Departing from my avoidance.

For my fourteen-year-old granddaughter needed clothing.

I needed to bond with her.

What better way than to shop?

Neither of us likes shopping.

So, we started out on common ground.

Moaning, groaning about selecting, trying on, winnowing.

Counter to expectation, both wear size large jeans.

Another mutual sympathy.

So it went.

Traipsing store to store.

Elbow to elbow with bargain hunters.

Peering at pants, tops.

Curbing my boomer perspectives.

About flimsy cut-off shirts offering skin, no winter warmth.

Appreciating Liora’s inclusion.

What do you think of this one, Yaya?

And relieved after two hours.

When she announced she’d had enough.

Three slacks, three tees, a skirt, one sweater.

Our Black Friday spree successful.

Weighed down, clothes up to date.

More precious, the relationship,

refreshed, strong, intimate.

 

Lynn Benjamin

November 29, 2023

 

All Poems, Electronics, Food, Holidays, Humor, Thanksgiving

One Way to Clean a Freezer

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Who relishes the job of cleaning out a freezer?

Turning it off, removing contents?

Defrosting it, wiping it down?

Likely, few of us.

Certainly, not my husband and I.

So, we purchased a frostless Frigidaire.

Upright, easy to organize.

For five years, jamming it full.

Cakes, breads, pies.

Cooked meals for post-trip returns.

Even berries from our former garden.

Last night, just returned from LA, we opened it.

To grab a pesto from the dozens made.

With basil from the summer bounty.

When liquid rained down on shoes, floor.

Everything soft, melted, gone.

Pies for Thanksgiving, ice cream.

Kugels, yeast and breakfast breads.

All now for trash.

Late night forced evacuation of goods.

Some about to be served.

Others forgotten, lost with labels from years ago.

That’s one way to clean a freezer

with an unforeseen compressor thaw.

All the time spent preserving goods,

now dished to waste collection’s jaw.

 

Lynn Benjamin

November 29, 2023

 

 

All Poems, Family, Grandparents, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Visit

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On Thanksgiving Day, six of us went to the movies.

Close to the home where Ethel resides.

So, when the movie ended, we piled into the car.

Roseanne and her three, my husband and I.

To visit my husband’s mother.

Grandmother, great-grandmother, mother-in-law.

We donned masks.

Signed in on computers at the entrance.

Took the elevator to the second floor.

Found her alone in a wheelchair.

In her room.

The one with a photo of her and her late husband on the door.

From younger, healthier days.

When she could remember who he was.

We identified ourselves to her as her vision is poor.

Her memory worse.

Chatted for a while.

Expressed our love.

Told her it was Thanksgiving.

She tsked, a vestige of past disapprovals.

Why I am here? Not with you? she continued, indignant.

Well, she resolved the problem.

Next year. Next year, we’ll be together.

Next year, we all heard her say.

But, who can read Fate’s hand?

Besides, she’s too frail to leave the home.

Save in fantasy land.

 

Lynn Benjamin

November 28, 2022

 

All Poems, Thanksgiving

The Movies on Thanksgiving

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Customs were different before the ravages of Covid.

Movie houses filled up on Thanksgiving, Christmas.

The whole family would file into the car.

Drive to a theater.

In the early afternoon.

Spend two hours watching the big screen.

But, Covid interrupted many traditions.

Including this one.

Theaters simply closed down.

Who wanted to sit next to strangers?

Who might be harboring illness?

Instead, entertainments at home mushroomed.

Into competing channels that streamed.

Films, series, even plays.

People bought large smart screens.

Watched films at their convenience.

Adding closed captions.

Adjusting volumes.

Hitting pause as needed.

The experience was less social, more intimate.

Yesterday, though, we dared to revert to old times.

Go with Roseanne and her three to see a film.

At the newly renovated 309 Theater.

Buying tickets at the last minute.

Finding, to our surprise, there was availability.

Getting to the theater late.

But still bombarded with previews.

Requesting management turn down the sound.

Putting balled tissues in our ears.

Getting overcome by smells of popcorn, artificial butter.

Our unprotected ears, noses!

We could adjust nothing.

No rewind to see a frame again.

No closed captioning to read along.

No fast forward to skip the trailers.

No pause to run to the toilet.

The only comfort, large chairs that reclined.

Maybe a little too soporific.

The redeeming feature:

Everyone stayed to watch the show.

Not one of us wandered out.

So, it opened up discussion later.

Much to think and talk about.

 

Lynn Benjamin

November 26, 2022

All Poems, Food, Thanksgiving

Vegetarian Thanksgiving

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For over forty years, my sister claimed Thanksgiving.

It was reliably hers.

My contribution, predictable.

Pies, challah, grain salad, roast fish.

This year, my sister broke the pattern.

Went to Boston to celebrate with children, grand babies.

So, Bob and I invited Roseanne and her three.

It would be a vegetarian feast.

Renunciation of the traditional.

No turkey in the oven.

No stuffing.

No kugel.

No fish.

Instead, spanakopita, Greek salad, pecan pie.

Discussed!

Resolved!

Carried out!

Till two days before, my daughter, in a small voice on the phone, asked:

Will there be nothing reminiscent of Thanksgiving?

Like what? I asked.

Cranberry sauce? Sweet potatoes?

A little surprised, I answered.

Let’s add them!

So we did!

Grateful for the occasion.

Sit side by side, convene.

Be together in the moment

no matter the cuisine.

 

Lynn Benjamin

November 25, 202

All Poems, Food, Thanksgiving

Ice Cream for Thanksgiving

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A code blue has been in effect.

For some days in Philadelphia.

Validation of frigid temperatures.

That stiffen exposed hands and feet.

But, it did not stop me from buying cream and milk.

To run my ice cream maker in November.

Make three quarts of vanilla to à la mode pies.

Pecan, apple, blueberry.

For Thanksgiving.

In fact, the machine ran smoother than in summer heat.

As though the chill were an extra boost.

Propelling the motor without effort.

Perfect for the chilly dessert.

Smooth and silky on the tongue.

Fresher than pints stored for months in store freezers.

Appreciated more by my daughter and her children.

For quality, taste, texture.

Ice cream’s now made.

Buckets, paddles scrubbed, dried, put away.

Time for main dish prep.

This year, vegetarian gourmet.

 

Lynn Benjamin

November 22, 2022

 

 

 

All Poems, Food, For Children, Thank-You, Thanksgiving

Sourdough Sponge

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A sourdough sponge lingered.

In a large bowl, covered by a tea towel.

Neither impatient nor restless.

Breath acrid from a day of fermenting.

Just waiting to be kneaded.

With a cup-and -a-half of flour.

A little soda.

Shaped into two long loaves.

Left again to rise.

For some hours.

What a gift for the hands.

For the eyes, for the nose.

For the soul.

To massage the dough.

While watching the sun rise.

From the window.

A meditation indulging every sense.

Thanksgiving prayer for food we eat.

Caressing grain that strangers picked.

Working in time to my heartbeat.

 

Lynn Benjamin

November 19, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

Adult Children, All Poems, Family, Food, Holidays, Humor, Pets, Stories, Thanksgiving

Pets That Lure

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Only a month or two ago,
my sister-in-law brought a new
puppy into the house.
The goal, to lure young adult
children home.
To visit baby Zola.
A part of me wished I could entice my grown children to come, stay over.
Alas, no pets on four legs here.
Only a fermented dough of over thirty years.
Living, breathing, needing food.
And I, its mother.
Well, yesterday to my surprise,
a friend called to ask if she could drop by for sourdough.
For sourdough? you ask.
To take some sourdough to make a starter.
No matter.
My darling drew someone to my house.
And so it was.
We siphoned off a cup of mine into her container.
Fed them both till they belched bubbles.
Voilà. Done.
My pet off to sire new breads in another household.
A launching of sorts.
A joy.
But also, a farewell.
Though I’m confident, it will be fine.
But I wonder how my sourdough,
effervescent, mature,
could coax my children home again
like sweet pup, Zola, the lure.
I suppose by lending flavor
to loaves of breads by dozens.
French, rye, pumpernickel.
They’d come, bring their cousins.
We’d be a happy bunch.
Every day Thanksgiving.
Feed our pet, our leavening,
so it continues living.
Likely it would survive beyond
a normal human life span.
As long as it was fed, stirred
by a nimble spoon in light hand.
So my sourdough, could now be
a magnet just like a pet.
With added grace, taste, smell
of a freshly baked baguette.

Lynn Benjamin
November 22, 2021

All Poems, Holidays, Humor, Language, Prose/memoir, Stories, Thanksgiving

A Thanksgiving Revelation

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Thanksgiving was the one holiday
that I rarely, if ever, hosted.
Last year, during quarantine,
my sister and her husband still did the honors,
arranging a family Zoom.
In isolation, I prepared a Tofurky for my husband and me.
Years before my sister took over, my mother annually
dressed the turkey, made matzo meal stuffing, kugel.
This year’s holiday was one baby step toward normalcy.
Nine of us gathered in Lansdale, not the usual
robust twenty or more.
But the camaraderie among our small band was palpable.
Hugs, smiles, eye contact, laughter.
Stories, poems, teasing.
Sitting in a circle, plates perched on knees.
Together once again.
All two years older.
The oldest only a little worse for wear.
The young, ebullient with projects, plans.
The anecdotes flowed, burst like water from a faucet.
Shut down in the pandemic.
Among them was a tale from my
brother-in-law about a big mahoff.
A guy in the Baltimore Sports Authority
who could handily get his own brother
tickets for Ravens’ games.
What is a mahoff? his grown son asked.
Well, Hal was quick to explain,
It’s a Yiddish word. It means big shot.
Then my husband whipped out his phone.
To look up the word, of course.
And to the shock, merriment, amusement of all,
to find the word a colloquialism.
Not of the Yiddish language, but of the Philadelphia region!
Who knew?
As Philly locals, we grew up with the word mahoff.
We heard our parents, teachers, friends use it.
We used it!!
The joke was on us.
It drew us tighter.
Bound us by the mysterious knot of language.
A nugget of knowledge just uncovered
in our small Thanksgiving pack.
A gem to remember, discuss, recall
on our first holiday back.
It will be a pivotal point
when rewinding, heeding this day
of group discovery and recovery.
An aha moment on display.
Our circle of nine will always be bonded
by a curious false impression
that mahoff was born in our ancestral tongue
when, merely a regional expression.
The Yiddish for mahoff is macher.
The word in French is gros bonnet.
Spanish, mandamás.
Pezzo grosso, Italian way.
English has its words:
big shot, big wig, big cheese.
But leave our city to concoct mahoff,
Philadelphianese.

Lynn Benjamin
November 27, 2021