Thanksgiving Dinner and other Disasters

If there is one thing I have learned after many years of preparing Thanksgiving meals it is this: Never, ever mess with the star of the show. I can get a little creative with vegetables and rolls, and even vary the stuffing recipe a bit, but there must be no variations when giving guests the bird.

Literally no one enjoyed the very expensive free-range turkey I ordered from an upscale purveyor one year. While the idea of fowl cavorting gaily about the fields eating whatever they like is heartwarming, this particular bird must have had very curious tastes indeed. It was so gamy that I should have soaked it in milk for a few days beforehand. Even the dog was suspicious of it. And need I mention that you should never brine a turkey that already has "x% of y solution" injected into it? Wish I'd realized that before I tried; everyone drank quite a bit that year, with very mixed results.

In Isis Crawford's A Catered Thanksgiving (A Mystery with Recipes), rich old Uncle Monty is that picky relative for whom nothing is ever quite right. When he officiously invades the kitchen and opens the oven to check on the turkey, it explodes violently, blowing off the top of his head. Libby fears her new drunken stuffing recipe might have been the culprit, but there are plenty of other suspects with very good motives at this memorable feast.

The most explosive Thanksgiving event I can remember (aside from politics and football) occurred one Black Friday. We kids always came down early and reprised Thanksgiving dinner with leftovers for breakfast. When we cleared up after our impromptu feast, no one realized that the big pot of gravy had been sitting out all night. Mom served her usual anticipated waffles with leftover turkey and gravy for dinner that night. They tasted just fine, but with eight people in the house and only two bathrooms, our house was Misery Manor all night as people did a quick two-step past each other down the hall to pound on bathroom doors.

Unless you live in a mansion, one of the perennially vexing issues at Thanksgiving is where to seat guests for dinner. Like Sleeping Beauty's mother, I carefully count out seating, flatware, and cutlery, but sometimes we are surprised by extra guests and I may wind up eating my turkey from a leftover Fourth of July paper plate with a seafood fork.

One year a young cousin blew in from the West Coast and appeared at our door with a strict vegan girlfriend and the biggest dog I've ever seen. I didn't even have any soy milk in the house to feed the poor girl cereal. She finally picked at a salad and some vegetables (we didn't mention the butter) and water crackers. The dog ate everything––including, I think, a damask napkin (we never found it)––and was perfectly capable of helping himself from the table, thank you.

Dogs figure prominently in author Debbie Viguié's I Shall Not Want, the second in her series of Psalm 23 cozy mysteries set around major holidays. It's the week before Thanksgiving, and Cindy Preston, secretary of First Shepherd Church, is helping her wealthy friend, Joseph, with his new charitable project. Joseph proposes matching homeless dogs with homeless people, in the hope that both will benefit. Joseph's charity will pay for the dog food and veterinary care, and help to find jobs and pet-friendly housing for his clients.

While the kickoff of the event is marred by the murder of Joseph's secretary, over 50 dogs are matched with indigents. But within a few days, the recipients of the charity are being murdered and their dogs stolen. The police are baffled. It is up to Cindy and her rabbi friend Jeremiah to solve the murders in this very light cozy.

This year, Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, starts on November 27, the day before Thanksgiving in the U.S. Usually it occurs closer to Christmas. Does this mean that latkes (yum!) will replace mashed potatoes at many Thanksgiving meals?

With very good luck, the kids will remember in December that they received their holiday gifts in November. If not, this could turn out to be a very expensive holiday season for many parents!

The Mezzo Wore Mink is the sixth in author Mark Schweizer's hilarious series of liturgical mysteries. Police Chief Hayden Konig doubles as the choir director of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in the small North Carolina town of St. Germaine. While Hayden enjoys both of his jobs, what he really wants is to write a successful noir mystery like his idol, Raymond Chandler.

Thanksgiving is coming and St. Barnabas has yet another new preacher––the previous few having been murdered, imprisoned, or fled the state in sheer terror. This one wants to hold a Harvest Festival at the church, complete with pilgrims, Indians, live turkeys, and original music. The Living Gobbler Festival is born.

What could possibly go wrong with live turkeys and children with hatchets performing together? Add a skit featuring members of the nearby Christian Nudist Camp, a couple of murders, and several hundred escaped vicious cross-bred farm animals, and stir. No additional seasoning is required. Hayden has kept me laughing throughout this pungent slapstick series.

In the spirit of Thanks-giving, many supermarkets participate this time of year in local Food Bank Check-Out Hunger drives by offering either in-store collection boxes for food donations or these handy coupons available at checkout. It couldn't be easier––rip off a coupon and hand it to the cashier or scan it. The amount of your donation is added to your bill and sent automatically to the sponsoring charity. Or give through your place of worship or social organization, wherever works for you. Whatever form of seasonal scrimmage you participate in, your own turkey and abundance of trimmings will taste just a little better if you have helped ease the hunger of others. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Review of Fannie Flagg's The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg (November 2013, Random House)

Sookie Poole is exhausted. She's just finished putting on the third wedding of a child in a year, she is losing her battle to get the bluejays to leave some birdseed for the little birds, and then there's her mother, Lenore Krackenberry.

Lenore is 88––or is that the speed of all her plans and demands? She is a domineering mother; queen bee of all Point Clear, Alabama, social life; and pretty close to certifiably crazy. Sookie and her husband, Earle, have only just finished paying off the legal bills from the most recent time Lenore decided to let 'er rip in a letter to the editor about one of Point Clear's local luminaries. So the very last thing that Sookie needs right now is to receive a certified letter that will turn everything in her life upside down.

In alternating chapters, Fannie Flagg turns from Sookie's story in 2005 to that of Fritzi Jurdabralinski, of Pulaski, Wisconsin.  Fritzi is the oldest of four daughters and one son of Stan and Linka, a couple of hard-working Polish immigrants who epitomize the American dream. It was a proud day for Stan when he was able to buy a house for his family, and he was filled with joy each time one of his children was born.

In 1928, with so many Americans starting to own cars, the big oil companies offered training and support to anybody who wanted to open a garage. Always game for a challenge, Stan opened up a Phillips 66 station behind the house and slept there on a cot so that they could stay open 24 hours a day. Linka made Polish sausages and baked delicacies to sell in the service station. Even the kids worked there.

Fritzi is a firecracker who becomes a stunt flyer and wing walker in the 1930s. In World War II, she is one of the women who became WASPs (members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots program), ferrying planes around the country, training male pilots and hauling targets for antiaircraft practice. We follow Fritzi's story forward through the years until we learn the connection between her and Sookie.

WASPs Frances Green, Margaret Kirchner, Ann Waldner and Blanche Osborn

The World War II story of the WASPs was such a pleasure to read. The idea was that men who were trained to fly should be freed up for duty overseas. Women who had flying experience were invited to apply for the WASP program, and 1,074 were chosen from over 25,000 applicants for this tough duty. Most of the training took place in Texas, in grueling conditions. The women had to put in hundreds of hours of classroom study and flight training, and lived in rudimentary barracks.

25 former WASPs attended a "Fly Girls of WW2" event in 2008

WASPs were trained like male flyer cadets, but the similarities ended there. They were not in the military and received no military benefits or recognition whatsoever––not even any kind of death benefits for the 38 women who were killed during their service. When they ferried planes to their destination, they were usually on their own to find food, lodging and even a way back to base. They were under strict orders not to fraternize with any locals or servicemen. Those in charge of the WASPs seemed to want them to be like pants-wearing nuns, right down to the vows of poverty and chastity.

Of course, whatever the powers that be might have wanted, women who flew planes in the 1940s weren't very likely to act like they were in a convent. Fannie Flagg depicts the WASPs the way they really were. Fritzi might not even be the wildest girl in her squadron. This part of the book reminded me of the movie A League of Their Own (Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Rosie O'Donnell), and I started daydreaming about a movie being made of this book. (Remember, Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café was made into a hit movie, so maybe my daydream will come true.)

As with all Fannie Flagg books, this story is all about women finding their own identities–––but in a way filled with humor and love. I could wish for more about Fritzi and the other WASPs in this story, but maybe Flagg will be inspired to do that in a future book.

As we honor our veterans today, let's include the WASPs in our thanks.

Note: I received a free review copy of The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion, published on November 5, by Random House. Versions of this review may appear on Amazon, Goodreads and other reviewing sites under my usernames there.