Preface To Dysfunctional Family Holiday 2009: No Turkey Drippings In The Dressing, Please

This is a perhaps moderately amusing story from my young adulthood. I became a vegetarian around the time I went to college, in mid-to-late 1986. My family, mostly used to me being nothing at all like them, probably thought it was a phase, but now, over twenty years later - well, I'm sure some of them still think it's a phase. My mother, though, was alarmed. She honestly thought I needed some form of meat regularly or I would die. Never mind that I still ate dairy products - she became convinced my life would drain from me if someone didn't shove a pork chop down my throat every once in a while.

So, in those days, I came home from college for Thanksgiving, even though it wasn't much fun, since my family generally had a football game to watch or something, so the television was on while we ate. I made do - I could have corn on the cob, & mashed potatoes, stuff like that, but mostly I loved the dressing. Mmm, dressing. I ate it up. I took some back to school with me. Yummy!

A couple years later my sister tells me that our dear mother, fearing for my life, put turkey grease in the dressing. She apparently would do that whenever she made me any meals - find some way to put some animal fat in it. It obviously explained to her why I could be alive & not - gasp! - eat any meat at all. I stopped going home for Thanksgiving around then, & I don't think I've eaten anything my mother's prepared for me in many years. She'd probably still do it. Or else I'll die!

I'm not only thinking about this because it's Thanksgiving week, but also because I was at the supermarket here in Huntington (I make it sound like there's only one, but it's too late to say "Kroger's" now, you know?) (there are more than one supermarket in Huntington, I promise) last night wandering through the frozen stuff aisle - you know, the pre-made, flash-frozen, heat-in-your-microwave crap - & there were a few frozen dressing entrees, but all of them had some form of animal juice in them. My fears were thus confirmed. My mother controls all the frozen food in America.

& unless I make it myself (unlikely) I get no stuffing for Thanksgiving. Boo hoo!