THANKSGIVING DINNER DOWN IN DAWSON COUNTY

"POP'S PLACE"

Well boys, the old year is getting away.

It's TG time again, and I am reminded of many 
TG's over the decades, particularly those in the
thirties and forties, down there at POP'S PLACE, 
in Dawson County, at his neat little farm, several
miles SW of Lamesa....and a mile from the oil well.

My mother and aunt-in-law were both about 5'
10 1/2" tall and country girls who had grown up
picking cotton---my grandmother could cook
like nobody's business---now when those three
started on TG dinner, early that morning, it
was a sight to make THE COOKING CHANNEL
folks stare with open mouths...and jealousy!

Their sauce, you French cooking snobs, was
BUTTER! (My grandad POP'S sauce was SAGE...
more on that.)

Now here was the menu as I remember it.
There was a big turkey, ham, green beans,
English peas, mac-and-cheese  for the kids,
"hot 'uns" (old Southern bread recipe---"have
another hot 'un?") There was always a jello
dish of some kind. Usually green or red.

There was giblet gravy and I never cared for 
all those liver chunks in my gravy...and of 
course the corn bread dressing ...now for
many years, My POP, who was noted for
loitering around the edge of the kitchen,
(as if some prep nurse, wanting to get a
hand in  the surgery) would hit the uncooked
dressing, when nobody was looking, with a right
smart of sage...I mean a right smart.

Well, nobody liked sage in our family,
oh maybe a half tsp in the whole deal.

The wimmIn'---being IRON CHEFS, like
Bobby Flay, long before the cooking
channel folks were borned, solved the
sage problem---they gave him an apron
and his own little pan of dressing, and
he, being so proud, became sort of a
"sous chef" in the kitchen, though
with a "sage breath" from sampling
his little pan!

My young bright wife watched them do 
that dressing, and now she can make 
it with the best of 'em. I do the corn
bread and biscuits, tear them up, and 
she puts it together. Real good hefty
nice BROTH, she says, is the secret.

No, we don't care  for the "EYRSTER"
dressing my Brooklyn colleague used 
to rave about. De gustibus non est 
disputandum..

Every family has its traditions, and it'd
be interesting to know yours. My
mother's family's, down in Dawson 
County, was a BIG fruit salad in a big
bowl covered with real "whip" cream.

Now, the fruit salad had chopped apples,
oranges, bananas, grapes, pecans,
coconut, plus real farm-produced
whipped cream, which was known to
the Iron Chefs, as simply "whip cream."

Egg nog was popular in those years at
the TG and Christmas celebrations, out 
on the farms where there were plenty
of fresh eggs from the roving chickens.

You had to watch Pop. He had some
kind of strong flavoring he was fond of
adding to the egg nog, when no one was
looking.

There was no football on TV....
    No Dallas Cowboys or Texas A@M
In fact there was NO TV!
    But there were quail everywhere,
under the mesquites and cacti...

My uncle, and gangling 6' 4" tall, a real 
    quail hunter if there ever was one,
and my dad and I would head out
    that afternoon for some quail
hunting..

POP, who was fiftyish, passed on the 
     hunting and sacked-out on the 
living room carpet...

where farmers napped after big lunches.


******30******
BY MIL
11/25/14