"Add a Little Southwest Flair to Your Life!"

Home | Magazine | Blog | Videos | See our Back Issues | Subscribe to our monthly newsletter | Yoga 

We do everything big in Texas and Thanksgiving is no exception. Food, family and friends gather to create big memories that last a lifetime, creating traditions to be carried on.

Growing up in Texas, I can recall many Thanksgivings when my grandmother had the windows open, the sun was shining, and the sky was crisp with autumn blue. And isn’t that why we love the southwest? Isn’t that why many times the relatives prefer to travel to our house?

But before the visitors arrive, grandmother begins her vigil alone on Tuesday making ahead the cornbread and pies. Sweet Texas cornbread for the dressing; pumpkin, chocolate, and coconut cream pies for the day’s starring desserts. Grandmother’s sister will bring her annual fruitcake which no one will touch, and if grandmother is feeling extra energetic that year, she may include a German-chocolate cake or a lemon chess pie.

Celery is cut, onions are chopped, eggs are boiled; all stored for use later in the old-fashioned dressing. On Tuesday, to my dismay, I was assigned the much dreaded task of polishing the silver. Grudgingly, I would remove the old wooden case from its year-long cabinet residence, polishing until I could polish no more. I doubt I ever did the job well enough but grandmother never let on.

On Wednesday, the cornbread was torn apart for the dressing and was at least an entire loaf of good old Mrs. Baird’s bread, a Texas favorite born in its Fort Worth hometown ovens not twenty miles away. This was also my task. I would sit at the kitchen table early in the morning, tearing the bread into tiny, tiny pieces, watching them land as they fell from my fingers into grandmother’s large aged cast aluminum roasting pan, all the while feeling hostage to Mrs. Baird (my children also experienced and dreaded this tedious task as soon my grandchildren will as well). I was then pressed to press the linens; white linen tablecloth and napkins, which I carefully removed from their resting place in my grandmother’s secretary. Setting up the rickety old ironing board, I set about my task. Ironing was better than polishing. I had to iron the day-to-day linens weekly anyway; tablecloths, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, all ironed by me.

Overnight visitors would begin arriving Wednesday afternoon. Guest rooms have been prepared and waiting, roll-aways come out of hiding, and those heavy old sofa sleepers pull out the one time a year they earn their keep. Children play in the Texas sunshine as the women band together in a Texas-sized kitchen to prepare a Texas-sized Thanksgiving meal. The men sit at the kitchen table or in the den; smoking, drinking coffee, watching football pre-game shows and still arguing over who shot Jack Ruby. Grandmother’s sister is among them, louder than all, stubbing her lipstick-coated cigarette in the horse-head ashtray. Grandmother shakes her head in her silent laughter, recalling that her sister has always been strong-headed and can out-argue any of them.

Ours is a true Texas family, a family of tough Texas cowboys whose lives were devoted to the stock they rode, cared for, bought, sold, exhibited and managed. A business and a lifestyle mingled into one. Even the smell of the holiday fare cooking on Wednesday evening did not escape our way of life as it wafted throughout the house along with the subtle scent of saddle-soap as my grandfather would shine his dress boots for Thanksgiving day wear. There were few females, we were numbered strong by the men who made our family and our heritage what it was. My grandfather, his brothers, my father and his brothers, my brother and cousins, all were male, and all dominated our household, except on Thanksgiving when grandmother ran the show dictating from her kitchen as one by one chores were completed, guests were made comfortable, and little by little we inched our way to the big day.

Grandmother’s sister’s husband would also attend and he was generally the highlight of the holiday. Full of stories and everyone loved to listen. He was not a cowboy though he wore lizard-skin boots with his dress suit. He was a lawyer from Tulsa. Very refined and the opposite of any man in our household. Once settled in he would change into a smoking jacket accompanying it with his pipe and cherry tobacco. Though it never took much to heat the conversation in our fiery Welsh blood, he was the instigator of many heated conversations ranging from politics to the plight of the working man. My uncles were college-educated and easily followed along but it was painfully clear at times that my grandfather, as calloused as the hard Texas clay we lived on, could not soften, though he try, to the seductive city-boy his wife’s lively sister had married. They did have shooting in common though and sometimes if the weather permitted, we would all go out in the yard where they would line up cans and aim to see who was the best shot. I was allowed to participate until once when the gun kicked back so hard it hurt me and grandmother said no more. Afterwards it was back to the kitchen for me and grandmother.

On Wednesday several salads were made ahead including cucumber/ham salad, pea salad, fruit salad, pistachio salad and Jell-O fruit salad. Thursday morning saw us up before the sun as the turkey was prepared and placed in the oven. Our dinner was usually served around one o’clock which meant the turkey had to go in early. The cousins and I would settle around the large black box of a TV and watch the Thanksgiving Day parade in black and white never knowing or dreaming of the rich colors that might actually be parading by as we awaited the coming of Underdog, everyone’s favorite.

The dressing was finished, adding the eggs, the celery, the onions, enough sage to completely cover the top at least twice, and moistened with chicken broth (there was never enough turkey juice to even attempt this feat so grandmother bought canned broth). Sweet potatoes were cooked, mashed potatoes (my grandfather had to have mashed potatoes), were also made. More relatives would begin trickling in on Thursday morning lending a little more help in the kitchen which would result in the china being washed, gallons of iced tea being made, rolls toasted and all the trimmings completed

About an hour before dinner I would set the long antique cherry-wood table with the clean china, just-polished silver and freshly pressed linens. Some years I would make little place-cards, others I would top it with perhaps a construction paper turkey made earlier that week in school. My grandfather would be called in to slice the turkey, it was his one contribution to the meal and when we heard the sound of the electric knife we knew dinner was almost ready.

Finally we would all sit down to dinner. The table sat eight to ten, others would eat at the kitchen counter, the small children at the kitchen table and I don’t think grandmother ever sat at all so busy was she refilling tea glasses, heating more rolls and slicing pies.  We usually had fifteen to twenty guests.

After dinner, if the Dallas Cowboys were not playing on Thanksgiving Day, the horses would be saddled and we would sometimes ride till dusk with the brisk November breeze, thankful for a wonderful meal, the gathering of family and the opportunity to commune with nature and our beloved horses. Once the dishes were done, the women would settle in for a cup of coffee, pie with whipped cream and a good catching up.

The nature of our rural Texas lives kept the men either outdoors or on the road much of the time so gathering as a family was a rare occasion and though they could agree on nothing when in the same room, the one thing they could agree on was that grandmother’s Thanksgiving dinner was more than anyone could ask for. Though many of them are gone now, her traditions and recipes live on as new generations step forward, though not in cowboy boots, we continue to walk her path offering family gatherings filled with home-cooked love, good conversation and new memories for our young to treasure as they too step toward their futures and families.

*******************************************************************************

Editor's note: In the twenty-eight years I spent with my grandmother, never once did she vary from her menu and only once did she not prepare the meal and that was one year that we traveled instead to Red River, New Mexico, to join my cousins for the holiday.  Below is my grandmother's menu:

Deviled Eggs

Pumpkin Pie

A Texas-sized thanksgiving Menu

Oven roasted turkey

Giblet gravy

Cornbread dressing

Mashed potatoes

Baked Sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows

Creamed corn

Cucumber/ham salad

Fruit salad

Pistachio salad

Jell-O fruit salad

Pea salad

Cranberry sauce

Rolls

Relish tray

Deviled eggs

Celery sticks stuffed with cheese spread

Pumpkin pie

Chocolate pie

Coconut cream pie

Lemon or Lemon Chess pie

German Chocolate Cake

Whipped cream

Iced tea

Coffee

Farmer's Market Foods, Organic Canned Pumpkin Pie Mix

Order online at Amazon

Pumpkin Pie Scented Candle

Pumpkin Pie 14.5 oz. candle by Yankee Candle smells of sweet pumpkin,nutmeg, molasses, cinnamon & a hint of apple in a buttery crust.
Order yours today

• Home • Previous Level •