Lori Borgman

We celebrated Thanksgiving outside on Saturday at our son’s place. The sun darted in and out behind clouds, the temperature held at a comfortable 48 F with no wind. You could easily go without a jacket. We could not have asked for a more pleasant day.

Tables were set up on a small clearing, plastic folding tables covered with canvas paint tarps. Our son had constructed benches made from wood recently milled on their property.

The First Thanksgiving was 400 years ago. It is highly unlikely they had a charcuterie board with olive oil infused mozzarella balls, bread sticks, fresh broccoli, carrot sticks, cheese, grapes, cashews, dark chocolate, crackers and a pecan covered cheeseball.

It was demolished within minutes.

We live lives of ease and luxury compared to the many generations who have gone before.

Food stayed hot in our pie tins on the walk from the house to the table. Eating itself didn’t last long, as kids peeled off to play, poke sticks in the fire ring and explore the woods. The day’s total for interesting finds was: one tufted titmouse, one downy woodpecker, two buzzards, one bald eagle, two chicken eggs in the brush, one very old brown glass bottle and an empty turtle shell.

Cayuga ducks raced through the pond to feast on mealworms thrown in the water.

Soon the ducks returned to nipping at the chickens, chickens scratched through piles of leaves hunting for insects, and many of the chickens boldly approached the table, several hopping up on a bench for a closer look.

When the kids reappeared, a crockpot filled with hot chocolate disappeared as fast as it could be ladled into cups.

Dusk fell and we were the last car to load up and pull away, perhaps reluctant to see a wonderful and memorable day draw to a close. I hope you had a wonderful celebration, too, and hold onto thankfulness all the year through.

Everyone has a dream, right? Some dreams are so big, you dare not think them out loud. But I did. I thought my dream out loud and now it is about to come true.

We are having our Thanksgiving celebration outdoors. In the woods. Branches overhead and leaves underfoot.

The forecast says partly cloudy with a high of 38, but you know how quickly the weather can change. It could be snow and a high of 20.

Who cares. We will celebrate outdoors like the first Thanksgiving.

Our son’s family is hosting. Their house is surrounded by woods and their kids live outside. Sometimes without shirts. They’ll be the ones who tough it out and make it all the way to the pumpkin pie.

There will be a wooden table made of long planks. It won’t be as sturdy as a Pilgrim table—it will be supported by sawhorses. The smart ones will aim for a seat in the middle. Our son asked if we wanted to sit on benches or stumps.

I told him to surprise us.

We are forgoing elaborate table settings with chargers, dinner plates, salad plates, dessert plates and stemware in favor of metal pie tins and mason jars. We’re taking rustic to a new high. Or a new low.

If this works out, I may have everyone write their name with a Sharpie on the bottom of their pie tin and use them for every get-together.

The table setting won’t be entirely void of frills. I’m bringing cloth napkins in a variety of fall colors. It is a myth that the Pilgrims were without vibrant colors. William Bradford’s journal describes “estates” which included clothing passed down to others. Colors of red, deep red and green are mentioned. I’m bringing napkins in those colors as well as mustard yellow and pumpkin orange. It will still be very first Thanksgivingish, although my napkins all have annoying polyester tags.

How our cooks bring their hot dishes is up to them but, in a concession to creature comforts, there will be power outlets in a carport for crockpots. Not to gloat, but I have a good collection of cast iron. Cast iron will save the day. Some of the food should still be slightly warm by the time we get it to our mouths.

I’m also bringing Jiffy Pop. That was at the first Thanksgiving; they just hadn’t branded it yet.

Our youngest sent a text with a factoid saying corn on the cob at the first Thanksgiving was tiny, about the size of a thumb. She wants to know if I’ll be bringing some. There was also fresh kill at the first Thanksgiving. I won’t be bringing that either.

There will probably be some grumbling about the cold, but I’m prepared to meet it head on – with a basket full of hand warmers.

Did I mention that I am sometimes alone in my ideas of what constitutes fun?

I may be eating alone, too.

Even if I am, I will be happy. And thankful.

I have personally prepared, or helped prepare, more than 40 Thanksgiving turkeys over the years, several of which were entirely edible.

Drawing on my vast experience, and occasional use of fire extinguishers, I wish to address frequently asked questions concerning how to prepare the perfect Thanksgiving feast.

My thinking behind this offering is simple: Don’t Make Thanksgiving Cooking Mistakes—Let Me Make Them For You!

The most obvious concerns are about the proper length of time for cooking a turkey.

“Exactly how long does it take to roast a turkey?”

Traditionally, for an oven-roasted bird, you multiply the number of pounds the turkey weighs by 15 (15 minutes per pound). Being leery of undercooked poultry, I suggest taking the product of the turkey weight times 15, then multiplying that number by the sum of all the numbers in your cell phone number (including area code). Not once has anyone complained that my turkey was undercooked. My turkeys may taste like the bottom of your shoe, but they are never undercooked.

“Does a splash of white wine in the gravy help?”

It has been my experience that wine doesn’t do all that much for the gravy, but it can have a calming influence on the cook.

 “What do you consider an essential kitchen tool for preparing a turkey?”

Experts say that a waterproof digital thermometer is essential. The best ones are available at high-end home goods stores and are very expensive. The essential kitchen tool I cannot do without is a small DeWalt drill (comes in an adorable yellow carrying case) with a masonry bit able to penetrate concrete. You may use a thermometer once or twice cooking a large bird, but you will use a drill multiple times trying to determine what is going on deep inside the still frozen beast.

“How do you remove the bag of internal organs, bits of intestines and waddle buried deep inside the bird?”

For many years, I wore plastic gloves and wrestled the bag out with a wrench. Eventually, I discovered that I am mentally healthier, and more able to enjoy the holiday, by leaving the disgusting little bag inside and letting it explode. Make sure you have a self-cleaning oven. Oh, and work on looking surprised.

The best turkeys ever were the ones my grandma made—golden brown on the outside and pure deliciousness on the inside. Unfortunately, I have no idea how she made them because I was a kid, one of 23 first cousins on my mother’s side, all of whom were routinely told to “Get outside and stay outside!”

“What is the best turkey you have ever served?”

Hands down, the best turkey I ever served was a tender turkey breast, smoked, thinly sliced, and purchased at Honey Baked Ham.

Everybody and their mother are knitting. They’re making fabulous, textured scarves, adorable baby hats and ultra-durable dishcloths. They all claim it is a marvelous way to unwind and relax.

When I announce that I am thinking of taking up knitting to unwind and relax, family members look at me like I said I am going skydiving.

The color drains out of our oldest daughter’s face. “Are you sure knitting is for you, Mom?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I ask.

“A lot of people who knit are, well, maybe a little more laid-back than you are.”

“Are you saying I can’t be laid back? Watch me,” I say. “I’m going to be laid back right now. Go ahead, get a stopwatch. Time me!”

“It’s just that most people sit when they knit, and you’re not really known for sitting.”

“Then I can knit standing up,” I snap.

Someone else says, “Doesn’t knitting involve long needles? Who in this room thinks that Mom should have long needles when she’s relaxing?”

The entire mob yells, “Never!”

So maybe I’ve had a few bad experiences when it comes to relaxing.

The last time I tried relaxing involved making jewelry. The creative expression was supposed to help me unwind, relax and find satisfaction in creating something with my hands.

Every time I was finally about to get a small charm threaded on a small chain, someone would barge in and ask if my new hobby was relaxing.

“How would this be relaxing?” I responded through clenched teeth. “I’m working with teeny, tiny tweezers, trying to hook a teeny, tiny charm on a teeny, tiny chain. What I have here is a great big teeny, tiny mess.”

I lost sleep, had eye strain and a dull headache. I gathered up all my tools of relaxation and sent them to my sister-in-law, who actually knows what she’s doing and enjoys it.

I’ve tried baking for relaxation, but it comes with a cost. About five pounds.

I even attempted yoga. The instructor recommended pants that were incredibly expensive. I just don’t have it in me to buy expensive pants then roll around on the floor in them. I was tense before my first downward dog.

Friends of ours bought a big RV to travel around the country in for the ultimate in relaxation. Their first trip out, the husband forgot to do all the pre-trip inspection and adjustments on the vehicle, and they wound up waiting by the side of the road for a mechanic from 2 until 4 a.m.

They drove 120 miles not speaking to one another.

Maybe the quiet was relaxing.

I briefly toyed with a Cricut, a machine that die cuts stencils you can use on big slabs of wood to create lovely signs.

One of the kids spotted a Cricut advertisement on the kitchen counter and said, “Walk away, Mom, just walk away.”

Some people simply weren’t made for relaxing.

With the rising cost of groceries, bacon may become a luxury we can live without. I just saw a pack at the store for more than $10. Granted, it was thick slice, but still. On returning home, I announced to my hubby that we will now ration bacon.

I could have said I was pregnant and the man would have looked less dazed.

Once he was back on his feet, he mentioned we are out of paper towels.

“Sit down,” I said. “I’m no longer buying paper towels.”

Using a paper towel is like ripping a dollar bill from a roll and throwing it in the trash. The price of paper towels has gone up and toilet paper is right behind.

I recently priced steaks, thinking we could grill outside one last time before the weather turns cold. We could, but we’d need to take out a home equity loan first.

Salmon has gone up so much that some wonder if they gave up swimming in exchange for hiring Uber drivers.

The sound of parents gasping at the grocery is shock registering as they stand before empty racks that once held Lunchables and deli meat.

It’s a similar story in the dairy aisle. Maybe there is reason to cry over spilt milk after all.

One of the large groceries I frequent has been using refrigerated cases that previously held meat to now hold fruit. It makes the sparseness of stock a little less evident. Every cook knows that trick. It’s called thinning the soup.

The shortage of chips has lingered since summer. Can a nation survive without Hint of Lime Tostitos? Yes. It can and it will. That said, I recently spotted two bags on a top shelf beyond reach. Another woman, a much taller woman, was able to reach them both and gave one to me. She might literally be the salt of the earth.

Pretzels have also become spotty. The only thing worse than a ball game without pretzels is the World Series without pretzels. Somehow, we will survive.

We booked a hotel room recently. It appeared the website had made an error, as we only wanted one room, not an entire block. Turned out the price quote was for one room.

Not long ago, people began saying 60 was the new 50, and 50 was the new 40, referring to age. With today’s new math, 8 is the new 5, and 5 is the new 3—in money, not years.

I went to fill up the car and was shocked at another bump in price for gasoline. Of course, it can always be worse. We could live in California.

When meat gets expensive, you can pack peanut butter sandwiches for lunches and cook more pasta —but there’s not a vehicle in the world that will run on Ragu or Skippy.

Some of the neighbors go all out for Halloween with spider webs dangling from trees, inflatable green-eyed monsters in the front yard and skeletons crawling up the house. If I really want a good scare, I scan emails in my junk folder or listen to messages on the landline.

Diplomat Joe McDonald has been trying to reach me to let me know that a sealed box worth $8,000,000 has arrived at JFK airport with instructions to be delivered to my doorstep.

If I were to email Joe back—which I will not—I would tell Joe that we live in a safe neighborhood, but $8,000,000 seems like a lot to leave on the porch.

Joe can’t dispatch the box until we pay $155 for a yellow tag.

Hey Joe, rip open the box, take out $155, and leave the box on the porch. We’ll let the trick-or-treaters dip into the cash and be the house that put the treat in trick-or-treat!

I also receive scary emails from people on their sick beds. If I were so sick that I couldn’t get out of bed, I’d be emailing health care providers, not some stranger I found online.

I was recently contacted by someone claiming to be Nelson Mandela’s daughter (from her sick bed). She has $15 million she would like to give me to use for charity. Imagine. A host of international contacts and she chooses me to do business with. That’s just creepy.

If I were to email back—which I will not—I would say that I am glad to assist, but there will be a brief delay while I register as a 501(c)(3).

BOO!

I also hear from people who want to sell my website. They charge 3 percent “success fees.” I’m more interested in their “failure fees.”

Even if I’m not interested in selling, they’ll pay me $50,000 if I give them the name of someone else. Easy money. I thought that was the domain of Washington, D.C. I guess ghouls just wanna have fun.

Then there are the terrifying messages on the landline. If we dimmed the lights and lit a few candles, we could be a haunted house.

“Your car warranty is about to expire.”

Ha! Beat you to it. Our Explorer has 215,000 miles on it!

“Amazon calling. A $700,000 order was placed on your account. Please call to confirm your account login and password.”

“Your computer will crash unless you call back and let us take it over remotely and provide two credit cards and a bank account number.”

The best one?

“This is the Social Security Administration calling to notify you that due to fraudulent activity, we have issued a warrant for your arrest.”

Heart stopping, but if someone is already on their way with a warrant, why would I need to call back with my name, address and Social Security number?

These messages are as fake as plastic vampire teeth dripping blood. They are laughable. But they can make you batty.

 

We’re thinking about getting one of those Ring Doorbells that notify you on your cell phone every time someone is at the door. A lot of our family and friends have them. They look like a lot of fun, chiming in the background of every conversation and meal, dinging whenever a car, runner or four-year-old on a ride toy passes by.

Plus, we’ve been missing out on the thrill of huddling before a notification of someone at the door after dark, poised to call 911, then discovering it is only an Amazon delivery. A Ring doorbell could be what we need to keep our reflexes sharp.

The real reason we would get one is because our bell keeps ringing but, when we go to the door, no one is there.

Sure, we hear giggling, but we don’t see anybody. We don’t look left or right, just straight ahead like we don’t have an ounce of curiosity or a brain cell to spare.

We close the door. The bell rings again. We open it again. More laughing again. We are about to close the door again when a kid or two or three jump from behind wicker chairs and yell, “SURPRISE! Did you know it was us?”

No idea. Never could have guessed. Not in a million years.

“How in the world did you kids get here?” we ask, seemingly oblivious to the minivan the size of a tank pulling into the driveway.

A 3-year-old pipes up and says, “We walked!”

“All that way on those little legs?”

She nods yes.

“You kids must be tired and very hungry.”

They hadn’t thought of it before, but now that we mentioned it.

“Come on in, we’ll get you something to eat.”

Our kids used to do the same thing to my parents who lived 500 miles away. They’d beg us to stop the car, let them out at the top of the hill and give them a head start. They’d race down the hill, ring the bell and Mom and Dad would open the door feigning shock and surprise.

“You walked all the way from Indiana to Missouri?” they’d ask.

“Yep.”

“All alone on I-70?”

They’d nod yes, as though we, the parents, thought that was a fine idea.

“Clear across half of Indiana, all of Illinois, through East St. Louis, across that big bridge that spans the Missouri River and all the way to Kansas City?”

“Yep.”

It was an old gag and they never got tired of it. The kids or the grownups.

We have a couple grands who live 50 miles to the south of us and appeared at the door not long ago claiming they had walked.

“You must be exhausted,” we said.

Exhausted nothing. Their eyes danced, their faces beamed and they doubled over trying to contain laughter because they fooled their ol’ grandparents once again.

Nothing more to do at that point but open the door and get the party started.

We all need to muse more and fall is the perfect time for sitting, pondering and reflecting, particularly in front of a fire. So says a piece I read recently. This was good news because all our adult children have outdoor firepits. Lucky for us, from time to time we are invited to join them.

That said, I would never be able to muse around our son’s firepit in the country, as I would be on edge waiting for wild animals to charge out from the woods in the dark, snakes to slither around my legs or bats to sweep down and tangle themselves in my hair. There are firepits that call for reflection and firepits that call for adrenaline.

Fortunately, two other firepits we frequent are tucked into suburbia where wildlife appears by appointment only. We were around a firepit the other night as the sun set and the flames danced.

The air was tinged with a hint of melancholy, which I assume is essential to musing along with any beverage named pumpkin spice. I was thinking how the grands have given us more joy than we could ever give to them (the beginnings of musing) when two of the darlings began arguing over a chair. The tussle escalated and required parental intervention.

Things settled down, then the makings of s’mores arrived. Soon kids were jumping up and down, waving long forks with sharp metal tongs bearing flaming marshmallows streaking against the night sky. The window for musing had passed; it was now time for first aid readiness.

A trail I frequent is lined with trees that form a canopy overhead. In fall, it is like walking through a painting in which the colors continually change. It would be an ideal place to muse, but it’s also the time of year black walnut trees drop their fruits. A ripe black walnut is like a small green tennis ball filled with concrete, then rolled in an oil slick. They hit the trail with a crack and would make a similar sound against one’s skull. You must be wary of what is overhead while simultaneously watching for black walnuts littering the path, waiting for you to trip, roll an ankle, twist a knee and send you spiraling.

It’s hard to be vigilant and muse at the same time. Musing on the trail hasn’t panned out, but my kick-the-can skills, as applied to black walnuts, are top-notch.

The other day I sat on a bench in the backyard to linger a few moments and enjoy the colors. Truthfully, I had paused to check some dings on my cell phone. The wind picked up and gold and crimson leaves spun to the ground. I looked up to see where they were coming from and saw a jet trail overhead. I remembered a flight I needed to book and dashed inside, preempting any and all musing.

I’ve added musing to my “To Do” list. Musing hasn’t happened yet this fall—and it may not ever happen this fall—but perhaps there is now reason to look forward to a long, cold, snowbound winter.

I had a confession to make on the drive home.

“I almost jumped out of the swing,” I said.

Our son-in-law built a great swing set structure in their backyard. Two swings hang from thick rope anchored to an arbor. The hardware holding the swing is rated to hold 400 pounds. I can’t help but wonder who he had in mind when he calculated that weight load.

In any case, one of the girls invited me to swing alongside her. We pumped and pumped, enjoyed the wind on our faces and sailed higher and higher touching the sky with our toes. We stopped pumping and savored the easy glide back and forth, back and forth.

Swing therapy. If it isn’t a thing, it should be.

All of a sudden, I was possessed with the notion of jumping from the swing.

I could visualize it and even feel it. I could see myself slowing down, waiting for the arc, letting go and jumping.

And then I could see my knees jamming. Both of them, but the left one the most, because it had surgery twice when I was a kid. I was also able to visualize a lot of screaming and the part where they scraped me off the ground and trucked me to the nearest ER where an orthopedic doctor would look at me with incredulity.

And yet, I still considered it.

Oh, the call of freedom sailing.

Time is a tricky thing. The outside of you ages chronologically, but a big part of you on the inside is forever 17. That is the part that plays ball with grands in the backyard, arm wrestles with the ones encroaching on adolescence and lies on the floor hoisting little ones in the air on the bottom of your feet playing airplane.

It is also the part that imagines you are still capable of doing a cartwheel. Step, hand, hand, foot, foot. Done. Or better, a round off. Run, run, run, run, spring, twist, land with a thud, arms in the air.

I see these things in my mind and I can feel them in my limbs. A little voice in my head whispers, “You can do it. You can do it.”

Then a much louder voice in my head screams, “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR EVER LOVIN’ MIND?”

Perhaps. Possibly. Probably.

“I honestly considered jumping out of the swing,” I tell the husband.

“I did it,” he said.

“When? I didn’t see that.”

“It was a couple of months ago when we were all at that park.”

“Was that why you were complaining about your knees hurting?”

“Yep.”

“Worth it?” I asked.

The answer was that he probably won’t do it again. At least not from that height.

In the interest of responsibility, let me say that people of a certain age should not jump out of a swing.

But you can still enjoy imagining it.

We’ve been doing a lot of sniffing here lately.

Usually, the husband is the one handing me something from the ‘fridge saying, “This smells bad. Here, see what you think.”

These days I’ve been the one waving things under his nose.

The husband got a one-two punch from COVID and lost his sense of taste and smell. Day Three, mid-afternoon, a couple hours after eating a grilled cheese I’d made for lunch. And no, the cheese had not expired.

He was on the couch and said, “I don’t think I can taste or smell.”

Just like that. Astounding.

I did what any wife would do. I minced some garlic, held it under his nose and said, “Here, see what you think.”

Nothing.

I tried some mesquite rub. It’s potent mesquite that clears your sinuses and keeps them clear for three years.

Nothing.

The next time he saw me coming, he pretended asleep.

I consulted our primary care physician, Dr. Google, and read a theory that COVID shocks nerves in the nose. The reading suggested trying to awaken the nerves by doing a sort of “smell therapy.” The premise of trying to wake something up made sense.

I loaded little containers with spices and extracts. He held them under his nose twice a day for 20 seconds at a time, then ranked his sense of smell from 0-5. There were a lot of 0’s and .5’s the first few days.

He couldn’t smell or taste, but he could chew, so I made foods with crunch. I stopped short of deep-frying broccoli in a buttermilk batter.

To help entice his sense of smell, I stunk up the entire house making salmon. Nothing.

Garlic bread. Nothing.

Barbequed chicken, smoked on the grill. Nothing.

About two weeks after this all started, I made Sunday brunch.

“Do I smell bacon?” he asked from a room away.

Oh, the magical powers of bacon.

An upward trend emerged. Slowly. He is regaining taste and smell, although yesterday he said a blueberry coffeecake I’ve made for years seemed “tasteless.” (The man lives on the edge.)

It’s impossible to say if “smell therapy” did the trick or if his sense of taste and smell would have returned on their own.

We do not take vision or hearing for granted, but we have taken smell and taste for granted. We just assumed. We never considered not being able to taste or smell.

These days we are giving thanks for the food before us with a deeper sense of appreciation—all the while inhaling every wonderful aroma.