The Sides

Today I am going start a series on Thanksgiving Dinner.

I love this time of the year. The time I spend with my family; the food, it's a great time of year! It was one of the few times of the year we ate in the dining room rather than at the kitchen table. Most of the rest of the year, the dining room was where we did homework; clearing the mountains of paperwork Mom and Dad stored there to one side so that there was room for our schoolbooks.

Every year, my mom would dig her good china out of the cabinets it was stored in. We'd spend hours cleaning the silver and washing the china. The table would be spread with the orange, brown, and gold table cloth. It had an autumn cornucopia motif. We'd spend hours cleaning the china, crystal and silver and then set the table.

Most every other day of the year meals were served out of the pots and pans they were cooked in; or in the case of our Friday fried fish dinners off the newspaper they were drained on. But on the big three (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter) and selected other rare occasions, meals were served out of honest-to-goodness serving dishes! There was a gravy boat, a soup tureen, and an assortment of plates and bowls of all shapes and sizes to accept a variety of side dishes.

And side dishes there were for Thanksgiving! Olives (Black and Green!), mashed potatoes and gravy, and stuffing! There was usually corn, and beans, and salad of some kind. Yum! And each had its own serving dish. There was a small oval plate just the right size to hold a can of jellied cranberry sauce (always served in a gelatinous cylinder and still showing the ridges of the tin can... that's how we knew it was "fresh!") and of course the huge platter that was barely large enough to hold the main event: The turkey.

It would have been nice to eat off the good china more often, but really, the stoneware was eminently more practical.

Wherever you are today, I hope that you have a great day!

Don Bergquist - November 24, 2008 - Lakewood, Colorado, USA