Vegan Thanksgiving Blues
My mother made beef stew for dinner. Diane is a wonderful cook when it comes to Italian food. Her lasagna with the mini meatballs and homemade noodles is a poetic combination of flavors and texture. The ricotta gnocchi, each giving a thumbprint indent to ensure they roll in the boiling water to cook evenly are requested almost as much as her eggplant parmigiana. The trick there is to salt each slice of the vegetable before breading and deep frying them. It pulls out the bitterness. She also uses a medley of cheeses rather than the thick glop of mozzarella that becomes rubbery, if it’s not fresh from the oven. Beef stew is not an Italian dish, and her’s is the all-time bottom-of-the-list worst.
“I don’t feel well,” I said at the same time my sister announced, “I’ve decided to be a vegetarian!”
My father tilted his face up from over his bowl, eyebrows raised and used his bright blue eyes as lasers to sear all additional complaints from our vocal chords. It was his signature move. I shut the hell up, and started picking at the carrots that were so overcooked they had turned grey. There was no way I was touching the beef which had qualities you look for when replacing the tires of your car.
But Katie, ah...my darling sister, the baby of the family, was not deterred by a mere contraction of forehead muscles which raised hair follicles on my father’s mighty brow.
“I’m serious dad, I have decided to be a vegetarian,” she said. Arms folded and her blue eyes mirrored in color but as full of chaotic mischief as his were of self-contained rage. I knew this dance well. By the time Kate was in the 4th grade, and I was in middle school, the battle of wit versus will was as time honored as Odin and Loki in my house.
He paused, knowing she was baiting him, then called her bluff, “Very well Kathleen. You can be a vegetarian as long as you can give me a reasonable presentation on what your food alternatives will be. Your mother will need to plan accordingly, which is additional work on her part. I need to know that what you eat will provide the necessary nutrition for a growing girl.”
Quick as a blink, and not to be outdone Kate turned to me, “Julie wanna be a vegetarian?” And just like that my father lost the match. I hated meat from infancy, and while Kate was dyslexic, ADHD, and avoided academic pursuits like the plague, I loved any and all research. On the day requested, my presentation had charts and a 3 page paper with a bibliography and footnotes. The following Friday my mom ordered pizza. One of the pies had pepperoni, and that ended my sister’s run as a vegetarian. I eventually became a full-blown vegan.
Those early years were a trial for my mother. Her ability to go out of her cooking comfort zone had already been established with the infamous beef stew. There was an incident with a stuffed pepper recipe that involved some kind of breading and fennel seeds that makes me shudder to this day. At first she was game, but with each culinary disaster she became more disheartened. Eventually she gave up and just let me make my own food. There were weeks I spent living on hummus and carrot sticks, and really there is nothing wrong with that.
But the holidays were particularly difficult, especially Thanksgiving where the focus is decidedly the meal. There’s nothing like looking at a sea of foods already prepared with turkey stock, butter, and gravy and then looking down at your plate of steamed green beans, sweet potato and cranberry sauce. Some years I would be told, “Oh! I made a salad!” This news, relayed with the excitement of a lotto winner, never got the reaction the salad maker was hoping for. At best it got an eyeroll. In the end, I often called upon my good friend hummus to keep me from gnawing on the turkey decorations.
So when I graduated from college I suggested my family celebrate at my apartment in Washington, DC. My siblings were in colleges in the south, and the parents were still in New England; it seemed like a good fit.
Once they agreed, I ambushed their Thanksgiving. Gleefully I planned out an entire meal that would contain none of the traditional favorites that brought them such joy. I made falafel and baba ganoush, crossing turkey off the list. I paired salads with couscous, but omitted mashed potatoes and gravy. Hearing of my devious plot, and wanting in on the fun, I invited all of my theatre friends who were in shows around the holidays. A few of them even showed up in full makeup in between matinee and evening performances. I remember the look of betrayal on my brother’s face when he asked, “Where’s the turkey?” and I smiled and said there wasn’t going to be one. It keeps me warm in the cold winter months.To this day he calls it fal-AWFUL, even though he’s learned to enjoy it.
You would think this act of defiance, a moment worthy of a hokey holiday movie, would have changed things for Thanksgivings to come. Instead, my family likes to joke about it as one of those times when I was youthful and crazy. Unless I bring my own entire meal, all I get is more of the same. I should think about how I am thankful I live in a city that has so many places I can eat, it makes the Thanksgiving day meal look like an amature event. However, what I do think about is another ambush, while I have yet another plain baked sweet potato and a side of steamed green beans. I wonder if my next plate of revenge should be the literal kind of “served cold”. Gazpacho perhaps?