THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 24, 1995 TAG: 9511240083
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Everybody says Thanksgiving is such an easygoing holiday, lots to eat and no pressure.
So I invited the three families, including eight grandchildren, to come eat. Leave it all to me, I said. And bought a country ham (cooked) and a turkey dinner (cooked) and a beef tenderloin roast (on sale).
And got caught up in a fascinating conversation on the phone, which left me with an hour to pull the meal together.
No trouble with the ham. One of the brothers, taught by his grandfather to carve, bows the knife as if playing a Strad and wafts onto the platter a roseate of slices you could enter in an art show.
To warm the turkey, I bent the flexible roasting pan close around it and jammed it and the roast into the oven. Rereading the directions, I learned the turkey should be placed ``in a cook-bag.''
COOK-BAG! Ye gods, they never give you the whole story!
Pulling the turkey from the oven, I called a daughter-in-law, who said, Never fear, wrap it in foil.
That done, I wedged the turkey back into oven when it occurred to me I had wrapped the shiny side of the aluminum foil around it.
I retrieved it again. Put in another call; the line was busy. Called my sister in Richmond who said, Never fear, either side will do.
Back into the oven it went its highly mobile way. Smoke began pouring out. Both lines were busy. Talking to each other, probably, marveling at my ineptitude.
Sounds from the beef on the grill were those of surf breaking. A friend, an effable cook, said the surf was fat dropping into the pan.
Never fear, she said, just grease the roast with some olive oil.
The grill and the pan were interlocked. Couldn't budge either one.
I grabbed a towel, reached in the oven and lifted the roast from the grill - WHOO-O-O-O BOY! THAT'S HOT! - and, cradling the roast in my hands, pulling back from the fiery furnace, slipped on grease, fell flat on my back, still clutching the steaming hot roast.
Primal instinct took over. Raising my arms, still grasping the infernal roast, without even consciously taking aim, I flung it in the direction of the kitchen sink.
And, even as I heaved it, I was scrambling to my knees, hearing the boys' grandfather, the best basketball coach ever, they believed as do I, yelling at them years ago as they threw the ball at the hoop, FOLLOW IT UP! DON'T JUST STAND THERE! FOLLOW IT UP!
The roast hit the edge of the sink - YE GODS! WHAT NEXT! - I extended my right hand far as I could, and just as the roast rolled on the edge, I tipped it into the sink.
Had it been Michael Jordan, the arena would have roared.
Instead, the three daughters-in-laws flew in, a twittering flock of goldfinches. They bore salads and molds and pies and they shooed me outside to watch the children.
There's no holiday to beat an easy Thanksgiving. by CNB