The holidays certainly bring to mind a lot of memories for most everyone... from childhood memories to family traditions... we've especially been feeling melancholy this week. Jerry and I expressed to each other how we're missing his mother who passed away this past January and more recently his aunt who died in October. Not to mention many other family members no longer with us or others we've been apart from now for so many years... missing them all and keeping them close to our hearts.
The holidays certainly will be different this year, but it also brings a deeper gratitude for life and family... and it also helps us to strive to change and not let time or distance keep us apart... there's several sayings I could quote.. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder...We Don't Appreciate What We've Got Until it's Gone...you know what I mean.
Life is certainly a blessing and a gift from God and for that we are Thankful. I hope you get to take a few minutes too and just sit and think of past holidays with family and friends, treasure the times then and cherish what still lies ahead too.. there's so much to look forward to and it's always so exciting to see what God has planned for each of us!
For sooo many years, when our boys were younger, our Thanksgiving family tradition was to go camping out to the desert and cook our turkey in the ground... yes you heard right. Wrapped in two or three PACKAGES of aluminum foil, buried in a hole six foot under, lined with river rocks, we'd cook those birds for hours, imagining we could "smell" them... then to dig them up and have a great feast!
The trips to the desert now have been far and few between since the boys have grown up and gone their own ways... BUT we did make an impact on them.... First I need to credit Jerry with 1) keeping our tradition going over those years and 2) passing it along to David... so here's what I mean.
David went to Culinary School and became a chef. Think most of you know that.. even though he's since left that profession. But he had a job for several years at Midland School, a private high school up in Los Olivos (near Solvang, between Santa Barbara and Santa Maria)... actually it was right across from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.. but that's another story for another day....
David was Executive Chef at the School, cooked 7 days a week for 80+ kids and the staff. It was a boarding school where the kids actually lived there too. During this time David and Holly got married, so their first Thanksgiving was at Midland School. And Thanksgiving was their Alumni weekend. The school would invite parents, staff and all alumni to attend and it had become quite a school tradition.
So David comes up with this brilliant idea to pass along his Reed Family tradition and convinced the school staff that he could cook the turkeys underground for Thanksgiving Alumni Weekend... we're talking about 500 people to feed. So Jerry gets this phone call one evening from David, seeing what he thought... and of course "inviting us up for dinner".... yeah right. It really was an invitation to come up and help him dig the holes, wrap the turkeys, mash the potatoes... whatever it took .. again for a mere 500 people.
Now mind you when you cook the turkeys underground.. that means you have to "pre-heat" your oven right....and by oven I mean the hole in the ground. So you start this bon fire at o'dark 30 and burn it for a couple of hours BEFORE you can even put the prepared turkeys in to cook for another 5 hours... and when the staff tells you they want to eat at Noon... yes it's about 2am when you have to start the process... BUT WHAT A BLAST WE HAD!
Here's a few pictures of our Midland Thanksgiving back in the day...
Here's David in his kitchen setting up The Plan of Attack...
Chore #1... get Dad to dig the hole(s)... had to prepare two holes (ovens) in order to cook all the turkeys... I can't remember how many turkeys we did.. I think 20... so each hole had to be big enough for 10 turkeys each... here's the first hole with turkey #1 in it ... hee hee hee.. it's Jerry....
Chore #2.. recruit some of the kids to help otherwise we could be here all day...
this was the day before Thanksgiving just to prep everything....
Chore #3... wrap all 20 turkeys in rolls and rolls and rolls of aluminum foil...
then go to bed for a few hours to get some rest....
Chore # 4... get up at 2am and start bon fires to heat the ovens
(the pre-dug holes)....
The school kids got a kick out of this and LOVED to help...
bet they're still telling stories to their own kids now too about it...
Here's some of the high school boys who helped out...
trying to get a few more winks between stokin' the fire...
Here's me and Jerry staring at the fires... actually think we're praying
here that this is gonna work... think it's about 4am now...
Jerry's checking the first to see if all the coals are hot
enough now to start loading the turkeys...
sure enough... start dropping them in...
uh wait.. what Chore # am I on???
Once they're in you have to cover them with the ash and coals
(thus the reason for the layers and layers of aluminum foil)...
then cover them with dirt and finally with a piece of metal for the lid ~
in the desert we use to use an old car hood.. honest!
OK now it's about noon.. actually closer to 1pm and
they're diggin' out the turkeys to a waiting hungry crowd...
The assembly line starts...
no one has created hot pads large enough for this task.. must use shovels...
you can't tell from the picture but the heat from the coals was tremendous...
Here's the final shot of the turkeys I got... lined up on the kitchen dock... for the final Chore of getting them in for unwrapping, slicing and serving... after this scene there wasn't another minute to take any more pictures as EVERYONE was crazy busy doing something...
I did get this shot of David.. watching his potatoes boil... while we were waiting for the turkeys to cook...
It was an incredible Thanksgiving.. one we'll never forget that's for sure! Don and Darlene come too of course and they were a huge help... and were put in charge of the dessert table ... each family was asked to bring a dessert... look at the spread that showed up.. we had pies upon pies upon pies...
During this whole process.. Holly had her own chores as she was the Music Director at the school... not surprising hun.. and she organized the students to put on an incredible show..
so there were no idle hands that day for sure!
This is a cute shot of the two of them in the dining hall... still early morning before all the action started...
Look at this beautiful table display Holly helped create...
So that's the story of their First Thanksgiving... the Turkey Legacy was passed from Father to Son...
oh and how did the turkeys turn out???
I'll let you ask Jerry that next time you see him....
and to that we all said Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment