A Toast for the Host

April 28, 2008
Article and Illustration by Jim Burger

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This past year I dismissed more than four decades of tradition with a wave of my hand. Way before I was born, family and friends gathered at my grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. Oddly enough, the hour-long trip really did require going over a river and through some woods. Earlier columns made mention of the Dickensian living conditions where I grew up, but the shtetl my grandmother called home made my town look like Paris. Ultimately, though, everyone came, thanks in no small part to the fact that my grandmother was the best cook in the galaxy. She did everything from memory, or instinct. Either way she never wrote anything down. For instance this was the recipe for her delicious roasted turkey: “1) Buy turkey. 2) Roast until done.” When pressed for details she’d say, “Add potatoes.”

In later years, Thanksgiving was moved to my parents’ house, and the next-door neighbors poured in through every open door. Occasionally the meal switched houses. But more or less the faces, and certainly the menu, stayed the same. Even when the neighbors moved away, distance was no match for custom. Most of the meal was prepared in Pennsylvania and then transported across many state lines to be consumed in Herndon, Virginia. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Thanksgiving. It is far and away my favorite holiday for a number of reasons: It’s purely American and practically untouched by commercial interests. It centers on family and friends. And most important, it features a freakishly starch-laden meal that no one in his right mind would prepare the other 364 days of the year. As I said, I loved it.

But time marched on. People died. Things changed. Two beltways, I-95 and the Dulles toll road, replaced that over the river and through the woods romance. I always got lost. Anyway, around Halloween last year I just snapped. I marched into my house where I found Mrs. Burger perched on the sofa doing a crossword puzzle and drinking a Manhattan. “We’re going to have Thanksgiving dinner here,” I announced.

“Sounds good to me,” she replied without looking up.

“Aw no. I know what you’re thinking. You think we’re going to go up to that grocery store on Roland Avenue, buy some stuff, bring it back here and heat it up. No. We’re going to make Thanksgiving dinner and that’s all there is to it.”

She dropped the crossword puzzle to the floor. Not her drink though. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her drop a drink. “What?” she shrieked. “We can’t! I don’t know how!”

“Relax,” I assured her. “Thanksgiving dinner is the easiest meal in the world to make. No matter what you do it always tastes the same.”

In desperation she played her last card. “Well, I don’t think it’s good for the oven.”

But I had grown inured to that lie. In 2000 we had a new kitchen installed and for years my wife told me that if she used the stove it would void the warranty.

Still, I could see her trepidation was genuine. And so that was how in the year 2007 not one but two Thanksgiving dinners were served under our roof. I went out and bought a practice turkey, and in that rarely used kitchen, weeks before the actual holiday, we together prepared a feast for some hungry volunteers. The experiment carried great risk. At the table sat an Annapolis lobbyist and an executive of IBM — two men used to only the finest cuisine. Also the editor of the Baltimore Messenger and a columnist for the Baltimore Sun — a gaffe would surely make headlines. At meal’s end not a morsel remained.

And the change that came over my wife in the next few days was staggering — flashes of domesticity unseen since the day we met. Suddenly our Fiestaware was unacceptable — service for 12 had to be purchased. Followed by a new tablecloth, linen napkins and antique goblets. Single-handedly she turned our dining room into, well, a dining room.

To my delight, the banquet for our families also came off without a hitch. My bride looked resplendent, serving mounds of green bean casserole, an image straight from Currier and Ives. Yes, the volunteers consumed much more chardonnay than the relatives — the latter’s preference leaned more toward the Mountain Dew end of the beverage spectrum. But in both cases the unmistakable feeling of love filled the air and washed over the congregation.

That night, after the guests had gone and the dishes were washed and put away, Mrs. Burger and I walked hand in hand through our quiet community. Eventually we landed at the home of a neighborhood PhD who mixed up cocktails so we could toast our holiday entertaining success. Still later we ended up in his hot tub with two lesbians. Now that’s a Thanksgiving tradition worth keeping.

Filed Under: View From Mars

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