Iowa for Thanksgiving II: The Big Day

Jonny says, “I don’t like to be hurried in my cooking.”  That is a novel concept to me.  I am always rushing against deadlines when I cook.  We all slept in on Thanksgiving Day and then Jonny started cooking Thanksgiving dinner at 11 a.m., with me as his sous-chef.  We ate at 3, and I was quite proud of Jonny and me cooking a fancy Thanksgiving dinner in four hours.

Jonny and I fixed turkey, bread stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes with carmelized apples, creamed spinach with guyere topping, and popovers, as well as mashed potatoes with gravy, and the maple pecan and pumpkin pies which Jenny cooked yesterday.  It was a treat to cook with my talented son.  The dishes all had subtle seasonings, and made a traditional, but distinctive dinner.  

During the morning, Sam and Henry played.  They made fancy hats out of Jonny's Wall Street Journals.

 Jenny played with the little boys and set the table while Jonny and I cooked.  She is a talented mother--very gentle and very engaged. 

 Sam made paper turkeys to decorate the Thanksgiving table.

 Everything tasted extraordinary, including Jenny's maple pecan pie!

 The only way to keep Thomas' clothes clean during dinner was to strip him down to his diaper!

 After dinner, we had family night.  We played “Roots and Branches,” a game in which we moved around a board while answering questions about ourselves, our family, and our ancestors.  The questions included what countries Henry’s ancestors came from (British Isles, Scandinavia, Germany, and Switzerland), and what nice things Jonny had to say about each family member (Jenny is very easy to live with; he can’t believe how many separate items I produce for Christmas—journals, Christmas table, cookbook).

 Jonny’s little boys adore games.  Morning to night, they play as many games as their parents will allow, and Jonny and Jenny are amazingly willing to play.  Jonny also uses games to teach.  As he plays Yahtzee with Sam, the two of them calculate the likelihood of receiving each combination of numbers on the three dice that are shaken at each turn.  “With one die, you have a one in six chance of throwing a 4,” Jonny patiently explains.  “With two dice, you have a one in three chance, and with three dice, a one in two chance.”  Jonny has bought dozens of games at the local Goodwill store and is always searching for new ones.  Henry is also a game player.  He was very fond of Sam's paper turkeys.