I put my hand underneath my back and force my body to a sitting position. My eyes heavy from sleep deprivation, I glance to the floor to make sure I won't step on anything. Dragging my legs, heavy as tree trunks, to the floor, I slowly stand up. My muscles feel like bags of water. I step around the barely touched bowl of risotto on the floor, and slowly make my way to the bathroom, staggering in a less-than-straight line. The journey takes only a minute, but it may as well have taken a year; when I reach the door, I am sweating and covered in goosebumps. I feel like lying down on the floor and never getting up. I persevere, pushing the door open and walking in, holding my water cup towards the sink. My eyes are unfocused and glassy. I look in the mirror, and nearly drop the cup. My face is whiter than I've ever seen it, with two flaming pink patches on my cheekbones and bruise-colored shadows under my too-bright eyes. My skin has a waxy complexion, and my hair is in one giant knot. I look horrifyingly like a doll someone has thrown away, the kind of doll you wouldn't want to sleep in the same room with.
Legs scraped but heart proud I march back to the bonfire with the perfect marshmallow stick. It is long enough that my hand will not feel the heat that reeks off the enormous flames and skinny enough to accommodate to avoid harming the marshmallow by forcing it over a fat stick. I approach the group's backlit sillouhettes huddled around the seawall. The center of all this attention is industrial size cases of Marshmallows and its necessary sidekicks Hershey's and Graham crackers. I push my way to the front, much too impatient to wait like the rest of the well mannered 8 year old "ladies". I march over to the fire, ready to immolate my four large Marshmallows. The sand is cold and the stars are endless. Water laps up onto the shore gently and fades away without a sound. My hands are warmed by the heat of the fire and I wait for my confection to burst into flames. Black and crispy, just the way I like it.
Most families eat dinner, my family eats Dinner. Most families eat meat, my family eats Meat. Most families eat Thanksgiving. My family eats THANKSGIVING.
The preparations begin at least three months in advance, when a turkey is special ordered. The average Thanksgiving turkey, according to the Turkey Grower’s Association of America, is 12 lbs. Our Thanksgiving turkey, ordered from a mysterious source is 30. One year, the mutant bird wasn’t available, so we had to take a lesser option: two 18s. One week before, the dinner rolls are baked and frozen, and Grammy slapps your hand if you try to eat one before the day. The day before, the pies are prepared: pecan (my speciality, which is made by mixing pecans, butter and at least two cups of karo syrup), apple with cinnamon, pumpkin, gramham cracker cream, and usually a chocolate steamed pudding that is written in my great-grandmother’s teacher’s cursive. It’s served with the best sauce in the world, a mystery of cream, raw egg and sugar that my mother eats with a spoon. They sit in a row in the pantry, covered in tea towels to ward off scooping fingers. In the morning there is potato prep, 5lbs peeled and chopped into quarters. The turkey is in the oven by 9am. Stuffing, traditional New England coleslaw, succotash, fruit salad as an appetizer in small glass bowls, scalloped oysters, cranberry sauce: two varieties; homemade and canned, rutebega, And last, but not least is the gravy. Flavorful, thick but not puddingy, and Grammy sometimes lets me eat the pieces of stuffing bread that fall out in the bottom of the turkey pan.
The imagery in this piece works very well, and putting the "events" in chronological order really helps the reader get a sense of how much preparation goes into your family's thanksgiving. The description of the food does a fantastic job of showing exactly what thanksgiving looks like for you. I think my only criticism is that the very last sentence sounds a bit awkward and disconnected.
My eyes become dim, lids closing with increased ferocity as the night jigs in the days’ after glow. My ass constituting a more permanent groove in the cushioned white chair, as I prop my left leg on the black leather stool to my left. Directly in front of me, a small T.V preaches Seinfeld, while, behind me, my father aspires to find an ample seating position, on the paisley red couch. This is a considerable undertaking due to the cutting ends of feathers that often pierce the thin layer of fabric separating one’s back from thousands of sharp miniscule crests. He found the position. Ass up, back down, with his neck delicately framed against the arm of the couch. His beard has not been tended to; his belly becomes more apparent as it meanders out from under his white greaser shirt. His eyes show little focus on his surroundings; he will not speak for some time… “Dig, alright back to Seinfeld.” Kramer drops a junior mint during an operation. A live audience reaches euphoria, and I reach ecstasy. My thoughts return to once faded memories. 102nd and Broadway, Howard Shore’s tender soundtrack introduces the audience to the Shire. My father places his arm around my young shoulders, while I pack my mouth with abundance of refreshing mints. Kramer spits truth, “A junior mint… its very refreshing.” Damn I want to go back to movies.
My house is a 253 year old colonial with four bedrooms, two baths, and screams coming from the basement. We've decorated it with two voluptuous cozy couches and numerous warm rugs, but we can't seem to get rid of the high pitched whine that comes from the barn. It's what realtors call a "distressed" house. Distressed, cursed, co-inhabited by multiple astral planes, haunted; whatever you want to call it, that's our house. The taste I associate with our house is candy canes. One morning a couple years ago, I was in bed, just waking up. It was holiday break and lazy winter mornings came to be a usual occurrence. But suddenly I heard the voice a young girl drift up to my bedroom, she was singing an unfamiliar christmas song about candy canes. I went downstairs and the melody stopped, and I realized I was home alone. Since that eerie winter morning, candy canes give me a strange feeling. A feeling like I'm being watched. Now when I see a dark figure move across the hallway, I tell it that it's not christmas yet. It's almost funny... Everyone can't wait for christmas. We're all counting down the days, even from beyond the grave.
I associate my feelings with food. Not that I stress eat or sad eat or bored eat, which I do, but how I feel about certain things. Today was a baguette day. Long, dry, and kind of boring. But finished nicely with an iced caramel latte from Arabica. My favorite kind of days are lemonade and popsicle days; refreshing and bursting with color. The sat's are potatoes that secretly have worms in them. Or a chicken mcnugget. Which has weird mysterious fibers in them, according to a video I watched in the beginning of class on Friday. Nice fall days are caramel apples; crisp, sugary sweet, and taste like home. Sometimes I feel apple pie. Certainly not the American Pie reference to apple pie, which is the first thing I thought of after writing apple pie, although sometimes I guess I feel like that too, but full, whole, and content. Other days, I am the remains of a chocolate bar left to melt in somebody's back pocket, long forgotten and unwanted later. Sometimes I am coffee, ready to start the day, and other times, I am the rotten aftertaste. There is a food to fit every feeling, every kind of day, every mood. I just happen to think that way.
Ever had a chocolate chip brownie? No, it's not what you're thinking, it isn't just a brownie with some chocolate chips in it. Rather, it's like a chocolate chip cookie IN brownie form. The best of both worlds. So soft to the bite, so chewy, even the chocolate chips are gooey. Damn. You know it's a quality purchase when even the chocolate chips are melty.
Making your own lunch for the day is an important thing to learn. As well as the other meals of course, but this particular meal is one that you won't enjoy hot, steaming off the pan or out of the oven. So you might enjoy to do a good job of making a tasty cold food, or something microwavable. I know some people learn how to make their own food from the moment they're old enough to work in the kitchen with mum or dad without hurting themselves. Other won't ever touch any pots or pans. Some have a passion to become a Four Star michelin approved chef, others are content to have their meals prepared for them for the rest of their lives. I on the other hand am intrigued by the conception of food as much as I enjoy eating it, which goes without saying, I love to eat. Owning a restaurant has one of two effects on you though. Either you learn to make good food next to the chef, or you are left always relying on the chef for eats. I was the latter of two luxuries. So, now as I am midway through my sixteenth year alive and eating food, I'm beginning to learn how to prepare sustenance. Preferably healthy sustenance, but pleasing to the tongue as well. I especially like japanese food and rice, having eaten rice every day of my life and still not sick yet I rather think it was a match made in heaven. I thought I loved rice before, now I've come to enjoy every little bit about it. Rice can be eaten hot or cold, hot being more preferable but you still got to appreciate the taste of cold or room temp. rice. Either way you knock it, rice is delicious and it is very likely that several years from now I will still be eating rice like a fish breaths water.
Last night at around 3 I woke myself up saying the words "I'm spread too thin". I can't remember if this was the result of some soul-searching dream or just because I used that phrase in reference to my descriptive essay yesterday. In any event I think my subconscious is urging me to value quality over quantity (but don't worry, Laura; I'll get that up to three pages). This fleeting inspiration sent, without doubt, from some numinous higher being (perhaps simply the human psyche? Dissolve that in your brain like one of those hard candies that you want to disappear but don't want to bite into) must not have had a profound impact on me because I turned over and had a most gripping dream about a marijuana bust on a college campus.
I love my grandmothers spaghetti. The ember red sauce drizzled over the wheat pasta makes me think of simpler times, when me and my cousins used to run outside and play games. When 14 adults would sit inside and converse, meanwhile the kids were outside playing with a tennis ball and a foot diameter plastic orange bat, and they didn't have shoes on.
I don't eat peanut butter, pasta, rice, condiments, beans, salad dressing, Chinese food, Boar's Head Turkey, pesto, school lunches, peach skins, other people's food, fruit-flavored candy, honey, chicken-noodle soup, hard boiled eggs, melons, lemon flavored things, strawberry flavored things, cherry flavored things, wings, lobster, calamari, expired milk, other expired foods, foods that I think are moldy, key lime pie, peanut butter pie, anything peanut butter, Gatorade, power bars, chewy bars, lifesavers, Panda Express, mushy stuff, white chocolate, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cereal, other people's water, fake maple syrup, soy milk, hummus, dips, most cheeses, salami, roast beef, defrosted food, jelly, jello, pudding, snickerdoodles, nutella, stews, subs, nutty bread, raisins, lime-flavored tortilla chips, macaroni and cheese, tofu, fake cheese, ribs, mayo, cheesecake, chicken pot pie, quiche, fried chicken, Cheetos, garlic bread, mozzarella sticks, curry, shrimp, eggplant, mushrooms, gnocchi, cottage cheese, cinnamon oatmeal, and ratatouille.
ReplyDeleteI put my hand underneath my back and force my body to a sitting position. My eyes heavy from sleep deprivation, I glance to the floor to make sure I won't step on anything. Dragging my legs, heavy as tree trunks, to the floor, I slowly stand up. My muscles feel like bags of water. I step around the barely touched bowl of risotto on the floor, and slowly make my way to the bathroom, staggering in a less-than-straight line. The journey takes only a minute, but it may as well have taken a year; when I reach the door, I am sweating and covered in goosebumps. I feel like lying down on the floor and never getting up.
ReplyDeleteI persevere, pushing the door open and walking in, holding my water cup towards the sink. My eyes are unfocused and glassy. I look in the mirror, and nearly drop the cup. My face is whiter than I've ever seen it, with two flaming pink patches on my cheekbones and bruise-colored shadows under my too-bright eyes. My skin has a waxy complexion, and my hair is in one giant knot. I look horrifyingly like a doll someone has thrown away, the kind of doll you wouldn't want to sleep in the same room with.
Legs scraped but heart proud I march back to the bonfire with the perfect marshmallow stick. It is long enough that my hand will not feel the heat that reeks off the enormous flames and skinny enough to accommodate to avoid harming the marshmallow by forcing it over a fat stick. I approach the group's backlit sillouhettes huddled around the seawall. The center of all this attention is industrial size cases of Marshmallows and its necessary sidekicks Hershey's and Graham crackers. I push my way to the front, much too impatient to wait like the rest of the well mannered 8 year old "ladies". I march over to the fire, ready to immolate my four large Marshmallows. The sand is cold and the stars are endless. Water laps up onto the shore gently and fades away without a sound. My hands are warmed by the heat of the fire and I wait for my confection to burst into flames. Black and crispy, just the way I like it.
ReplyDeleteMost families eat dinner, my family eats Dinner. Most families eat meat, my family eats Meat. Most families eat Thanksgiving. My family eats THANKSGIVING.
ReplyDeleteThe preparations begin at least three months in advance, when a turkey is special ordered. The average Thanksgiving turkey, according to the Turkey Grower’s Association of America, is 12 lbs. Our Thanksgiving turkey, ordered from a mysterious source is 30. One year, the mutant bird wasn’t available, so we had to take a lesser option: two 18s.
One week before, the dinner rolls are baked and frozen, and Grammy slapps your hand if you try to eat one before the day.
The day before, the pies are prepared: pecan (my speciality, which is made by mixing pecans, butter and at least two cups of karo syrup), apple with cinnamon, pumpkin, gramham cracker cream, and usually a chocolate steamed pudding that is written in my great-grandmother’s teacher’s cursive. It’s served with the best sauce in the world, a mystery of cream, raw egg and sugar that my mother eats with a spoon. They sit in a row in the pantry, covered in tea towels to ward off scooping fingers.
In the morning there is potato prep, 5lbs peeled and chopped into quarters. The turkey is in the oven by 9am. Stuffing, traditional New England coleslaw, succotash, fruit salad as an appetizer in small glass bowls, scalloped oysters, cranberry sauce: two varieties; homemade and canned, rutebega,
And last, but not least is the gravy. Flavorful, thick but not puddingy, and Grammy sometimes lets me eat the pieces of stuffing bread that fall out in the bottom of the turkey pan.
The imagery in this piece works very well, and putting the "events" in chronological order really helps the reader get a sense of how much preparation goes into your family's thanksgiving. The description of the food does a fantastic job of showing exactly what thanksgiving looks like for you. I think my only criticism is that the very last sentence sounds a bit awkward and disconnected.
DeleteMy eyes become dim, lids closing with increased ferocity as the night jigs in the days’ after glow. My ass constituting a more permanent groove in the cushioned white chair, as I prop my left leg on the black leather stool to my left. Directly in front of me, a small T.V preaches Seinfeld, while, behind me, my father aspires to find an ample seating position, on the paisley red couch. This is a considerable undertaking due to the cutting ends of feathers that often pierce the thin layer of fabric separating one’s back from thousands of sharp miniscule crests. He found the position. Ass up, back down, with his neck delicately framed against the arm of the couch. His beard has not been tended to; his belly becomes more apparent as it meanders out from under his white greaser shirt. His eyes show little focus on his surroundings; he will not speak for some time… “Dig, alright back to Seinfeld.” Kramer drops a junior mint during an operation. A live audience reaches euphoria, and I reach ecstasy. My thoughts return to once faded memories. 102nd and Broadway, Howard Shore’s tender soundtrack introduces the audience to the Shire. My father places his arm around my young shoulders, while I pack my mouth with abundance of refreshing mints. Kramer spits truth, “A junior mint… its very refreshing.” Damn I want to go back to movies.
ReplyDeleteMy house is a 253 year old colonial with four bedrooms, two baths, and screams coming from the basement. We've decorated it with two voluptuous cozy couches and numerous warm rugs, but we can't seem to get rid of the high pitched whine that comes from the barn. It's what realtors call a "distressed" house. Distressed, cursed, co-inhabited by multiple astral planes, haunted; whatever you want to call it, that's our house. The taste I associate with our house is candy canes. One morning a couple years ago, I was in bed, just waking up. It was holiday break and lazy winter mornings came to be a usual occurrence. But suddenly I heard the voice a young girl drift up to my bedroom, she was singing an unfamiliar christmas song about candy canes. I went downstairs and the melody stopped, and I realized I was home alone. Since that eerie winter morning, candy canes give me a strange feeling. A feeling like I'm being watched. Now when I see a dark figure move across the hallway, I tell it that it's not christmas yet. It's almost funny... Everyone can't wait for christmas. We're all counting down the days, even from beyond the grave.
ReplyDeleteI associate my feelings with food. Not that I stress eat or sad eat or bored eat, which I do, but how I feel about certain things. Today was a baguette day. Long, dry, and kind of boring. But finished nicely with an iced caramel latte from Arabica. My favorite kind of days are lemonade and popsicle days; refreshing and bursting with color. The sat's are potatoes that secretly have worms in them. Or a chicken mcnugget. Which has weird mysterious fibers in them, according to a video I watched in the beginning of class on Friday. Nice fall days are caramel apples; crisp, sugary sweet, and taste like home. Sometimes I feel apple pie. Certainly not the American Pie reference to apple pie, which is the first thing I thought of after writing apple pie, although sometimes I guess I feel like that too, but full, whole, and content. Other days, I am the remains of a chocolate bar left to melt in somebody's back pocket, long forgotten and unwanted later. Sometimes I am coffee, ready to start the day, and other times, I am the rotten aftertaste. There is a food to fit every feeling, every kind of day, every mood. I just happen to think that way.
ReplyDeleteEver had a chocolate chip brownie? No, it's not what you're thinking, it isn't just a brownie with some chocolate chips in it. Rather, it's like a chocolate chip cookie IN brownie form. The best of both worlds. So soft to the bite, so chewy, even the chocolate chips are gooey. Damn. You know it's a quality purchase when even the chocolate chips are melty.
ReplyDeleteMaking your own lunch for the day is an important thing to learn. As well as the other meals of course, but this particular meal is one that you won't enjoy hot, steaming off the pan or out of the oven. So you might enjoy to do a good job of making a tasty cold food, or something microwavable. I know some people learn how to make their own food from the moment they're old enough to work in the kitchen with mum or dad without hurting themselves. Other won't ever touch any pots or pans. Some have a passion to become a Four Star michelin approved chef, others are content to have their meals prepared for them for the rest of their lives. I on the other hand am intrigued by the conception of food as much as I enjoy eating it, which goes without saying, I love to eat. Owning a restaurant has one of two effects on you though. Either you learn to make good food next to the chef, or you are left always relying on the chef for eats. I was the latter of two luxuries. So, now as I am midway through my sixteenth year alive and eating food, I'm beginning to learn how to prepare sustenance. Preferably healthy sustenance, but pleasing to the tongue as well. I especially like japanese food and rice, having eaten rice every day of my life and still not sick yet I rather think it was a match made in heaven. I thought I loved rice before, now I've come to enjoy every little bit about it. Rice can be eaten hot or cold, hot being more preferable but you still got to appreciate the taste of cold or room temp. rice. Either way you knock it, rice is delicious and it is very likely that several years from now I will still be eating rice like a fish breaths water.
ReplyDeleteLast night at around 3 I woke myself up saying the words "I'm spread too thin". I can't remember if this was the result of some soul-searching dream or just because I used that phrase in reference to my descriptive essay yesterday. In any event I think my subconscious is urging me to value quality over quantity (but don't worry, Laura; I'll get that up to three pages). This fleeting inspiration sent, without doubt, from some numinous higher being (perhaps simply the human psyche? Dissolve that in your brain like one of those hard candies that you want to disappear but don't want to bite into) must not have had a profound impact on me because I turned over and had a most gripping dream about a marijuana bust on a college campus.
ReplyDeleteI love my grandmothers spaghetti. The ember red sauce drizzled over the wheat pasta makes me think of simpler times, when me and my cousins used to run outside and play games. When 14 adults would sit inside and converse, meanwhile the kids were outside playing with a tennis ball and a foot diameter plastic orange bat, and they didn't have shoes on.
ReplyDelete