“Oh no! Don’t come into the kitchen!” “But I need to start making the –”
“You’re not supposed to be awake! It’s a surprise.”
Over the agitated child’s shoulder lay a kitchen that had been made ready for Thanksgiving food preparation. The counters were clear of paperwork and books, roasting pans were stacked conveniently on one side, and boxes of crackers, bags of stuffing, and cans of pumpkin waited to be opened.
I say, “Had been prepared” for the kitchen was prepared no longer. A light sifting of flour now rested on every surface. A greasy miasma rose from oil burning on a griddle turned up to high. Eggshells and spattered measuring cups and shreds of waxed paper spilled across formerly pristine surfaces.
“Oh no!” I echoed her cry. Sure, it’s lovely when a child wants to cook for her family and as a supportive mother (at least in theory) I ought to have applauded the ambition of this amateur who had abruptly decided to make pancakes.
But having spent a good part of the previous evening swabbing the decks for a Thanksgiving bakefest, my delight was, shall we say, adulterated.
Even as we stood there, a vehicle filled with relatives was rolling down Interstate 95 toward us. Pie crusts demanded rolling! Leeks required soaking! Cranberry sauce couldn’t wait!
A hopeful, distressed face looked up at me.
“Thank you for making breakfast,” I fibbed to it, trying not to sigh. “Please take as much time as you need.”
“Yay!” said the child. “OK, now I have to add butter. You can go away again.”
I went away. The cooking could wait a bit, after all. Plenty of other tasks needed tackling. We had to make up beds and pallets for the visitors, and find towels for everyone. Children not busy with cooking had to collect autumnal items from the back yard and string maple leaves into garlands that could be left around the house, half-finished and increasingly crunchy, so as to give the vacuum cleaner something to do later.
The doorbell rang: Two workers had come to hang curtains in a ground-floor room that would house an elderly relative too frail to use the stairs.
A voice called from the kitchen: “How long do I need to microwave the butter, to melt it?”
“About ten seconds!” I called back.
A short time later the cook bawled: “It’s not melting!”
“Did you zap it?” someone asked.
“Yes, but the machine isn’t working.”
A malfunctioning microwave, mere minutes before I had to get into serious, turbo-Thanksgiving prep? With my heart sinking, I strode into the mouth of chaos.
“See? It’s barely melted at all!” said the chef.
The exasperated child was cradling a bowl full of butter. Not three tablespoons, as the pancake recipe specified, but three great sticks of the stuff. They lay, fatly, in a pool of their own liquid.
“Oh no!” I yelped. In our household, at least, this seems to be the catchphrase for Thanksgiving 2010.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
