Thanksgiving in the Low-Country

I can say I consider myself lucky.  We have never done the black Friday shopping thing the day after Thanksgiving.  That is a day to do dishes and clean up from Thanksgiving.

To me, Thanksgiving has always been a family holiday.  My mother's side of the family has always gathered and shared a meal and stories.  Some years there are more people, some years there are less.  When this year came around, there was no discussion as to whether or not I would attend.  The boy could not get off work, and his oldest daughter was in residence, so he stayed home and I ventured out for the 4 hour trip with my older brother on Wednesday, after a pretty substantial trip to the farmers market.  Traffic was not bad.  We only got stopped once in South Carolina, but we always do.  Why the transportation people in SC can't figure out that widening the interstate to three lanes each direction is a good idea, I will never know. Instead, they concentrate on making it pretty.  But don't get me started on that particular rant.  My brother hears it every time we make the drive.

The entrance to SC on i95.

Anywho, we made decent time and arrived not too long after lunchtime, had half a sandwich and started on the cooking.

My brother has worked in a kitchen from the time he was 14.  He has crazy knife skills.  His job when he goes to Mom's is always the same: sous chef.  He immediately started cutting up vegetables.  He cuts them and Mom puts them in the freezer to use in cooking throughout the year.  So, 8 pounds of onions, 2 bunches of celery, and countless bell peppers later, he moved on to making fruit salad, sectioning citrus.  It's pretty amazing to watch him work.

During this, I was working on what is always my job: peeling chestnuts.  The way we do them, you have to peel twice, once before cooking, and once when hot.  I was doing the first peeling, something I could do while sitting with my foot up.  I had ordered 6 pounds from a grower and had them delivered to Mom, so I had some work to do.

Chestnuts

Then I made whole berry cranberry sauce.  Mom was working on getting our dinner started (pork loin with green beans and roasted potatoes).  Look, I never said we do not eat well, and we had 10 people to cook for.  We had to keep the energy level up.

Rather than bore you all with a play by play of every single thing we cooked, I'll just list them out.

Brother:
Roasted broccoli with balsamic drizzle
Ambrosia (fruit salad)
Speckled butter beans and okra (with Mom)
all chopping
some amazing turkey carving

Me:
Chestnuts with browned butter
2 pumpkin pies (one with, one without crust)
Cheesy pearl onion casserole
Whole berry cranberry sauce
Roasted Brussels sprouts

Mom:
2 turkeys
Stuffing, both in and out of the bird
Giblet gravy (she is the master)
Apple pie

Then my aunt brought mashed potatoes, deviled eggs and more pie, and my cousin brought green bean casserole and pickles.

Yes, we ate well.  We sat for a couple of hours around the tables (2 pushed together) and told stories. Some we had heard before, some we had not.  Then the tupper-ware free-for-all began.  One cousin had told his mother he would bring enough for her left-overs.  When she got there to see he didn't have enough, she was a bit upset.  My cousin's comment was one for the record books:  "Well Mom, when have I ever NOT exaggerated?"  No fear, my brother had more than enough for me, him, AND her.  In our house, Thanksgiving is also about the left overs.  You always cook more than needed to allow for this.  I long for the days when my mom and her sisters put together the leftovers for each of the kids, but since we are all adults now, we are just expected to get in there and elbow our way through with all the others to fight for what we want.  And god forbid if you are late getting to the kitchen when it gets started.  You may just not get any...

So that's why Black Friday is for doing dishes.  Mom washes, I dry, my brother naps and watches football.  No, we don't have a dishwasher.  It's the same pretty much every year.

But this year, we did do something different.  We actually left the house on Friday to indulge in one of our favorite meals (can you tell our lives seem to be centered around "the eating"?  Nothing like being a German Lutheran to instill that in a family).  Low-country Oysters.  We are lucky my mother didn't come to blows with the waitress when she said she thought they hadn't gotten any in.  But no worries, they had.  So we sat for several hours playing with our rocks and eating lightly steamed oysters that taste like the ocean.  We usually travel with our own oyster knives, but this time we used the ones from the restaurant. You can't be a South Carolina person and not have your own oyster knives.  I will tell you all a secret.  I'm really not a huge oyster fan.  If they are cooked more, they are pretty good, but when they are really...wet...like my family likes them, not so much.  But I indulge because it is such a treat for the rest of my family.  And it's kind of fun playing with my food.

Anyway, the highlight of my day was that I wore two matching tennis shoes.  And I got to spend time with family, because that really is what it is all about.

Yay shoes!

The next day we packed up our coolers and headed home.  I always leave on Saturday because of that dreaded stretch of highway in SC.  The snow-birds are in flight, along with a great many equine transport vans, as everyone leaves family and heads to where it's warmer.  This year my brother was smart and got off the highway on 17 and went that way to Savannah and met back up with the interstate in GA.  It was eerie in GA, as there was no one on the highway.  Like, there are more people on that road on a Tuesday than there was Saturday.  With that, we made great time.  It was a good trip, always too quick, and not involving enough ponies, but good.