By RaeJean Spencer Hasenoehrl
As a teenager, my domestic skills contributed towards the toxic waste problem within the United States. Thus, each year for our family’s Thanksgiving meal, I was relegated to mashing potatoes and whipping up a pitcher of Kool-Aid.Once I was married and living hundreds of miles away from my family I realized that, with Thanksgiving a few short weeks away, it might be wise for me to do a practice run in making a proper holiday meal. Without my mother’s capable hands to rescue the meal, I was forced to pay attention to the culinary details of seasoning the turkey, cooking the potatoes to fork-tender perfection, and thickening the gravy without turning it into sludge.
I roasted the turkey in a large baking dish — a wedding gift I hadn’t yet used. I whipped up a magnificent batch of Stove Top without scorching a single stuffing crumb. Cubes of potatoes boiled away. And black cherry Kool-Aid was waiting for ice.
At last, it was time to create the piece de resistance: the gravy. I carefully placed the turkey on a platter (okay, it was a cookie sheet — this newlywed didn’t yet own a platter). I placed the baking dish on the stove’s burner to heat the tasty drippings. I measured two tablespoons of flour and stirred it into the drippings, just like I’d watched my mother do at least a hundred times.
All at once, gunshots sounded. I took the duck-and-cover position on the kitchen floor. My heart pounded as I waited for more gunshots to sound. And the phone to call the police? Heaven help me, it was in the other room.
