The Thanksgiving Sandwich: What's Missing, What Remains, What's Left over
The Perfect Sandwich
In my October 9th post on Earl’s Beer and Cheese, I waxed lyrical about Action Bronson, the Albanian/Jewish rapper and online culinary star. Ever since I wrote about his Thanksgiving leftover sandwich I was hankering to make one. So, during last week’s repast at my sister Carol’s house, every time I put something aside in a Tupperware, I announced loudly that I was saving it for my Action Bronson sandwich, to the point where my niece Olivia remarked, “I think you’re more focused on your sandwich than on the dinner.” Hmm. Was I? So before I go into details on “the sandwich,” I do want to focus on Thanksgiving this year, and what it meant for our family, what was missing, what remains…
Well, I wanted to focus on it here in my blog, but the days since Thanksgiving ticked by and my thoughts started getting as stale as that Thanksgiving turkey in a Ziploc in the fridge. I think I’ll just pour the thoughts out like gravy, letting them pool on the page in an undisciplined paragraph….as I quoted from my high school journal in an earlier post: Every day I spend trying to keep the inexplicable from oozing out of the everyday sandwich I make.” Well, I’m not even trying. Let it ooze…
First Thanksgiving with our 90-year-old mother stuck in Kabul Hill....”When am I going home?” “Do I have a choice?” “Don’t let Richard hack up the turkey.”….guilt-ridden texts between my sister and me…can we have her over??…The thought of stuffing Muzzy’s fossilized arms into a winter coat, renting a ramp, a van…the clincher: what if she has to poop?…emailed family polls about the side dishes…tradition vs. free for all…”Tradition! Tradition! Yum-did-ee-dum-tum-tum Tradition!.. Muzzy’s cranberry sauce, her sweet potato pie with marshmallows… "MARSHMALLOWS?!” The Chef’s utter disdain for sweet sides…”America’s Most Important Festival of Cold Foods”…but Carol’s HOT savory stuffing with mushrooms and chestnuts…tapping the hard top of the marshmallows with my fork, knowing gooey goodness lies beneath…Susan Stamberg’s cranberry relish recipe: “a wonder” say all, except me….framed photo of young 1970s Muzzy, like an altar offering: “presenting” the pie next to said pie…Ohhhh She was glamorous…now crumpled in chair with flat face or grimace…a Kabuligan menu of won ton soup, spaghetti and black beans: please let them serve her real Thanksgiving food… jollity at our table… niece and nephew telling a hilarious story about my sweet brother’s clueless moment…the rants about Trump tailing into enthusiasm over TV shows and movies.…..Russian Luba speaking a perfect Italian toast to my son in Canada….Daughter and niece pawing through gold rings and clip on earrings from the motherlode…my brother’s pumpkin pie, silky with always a strong note of clove….”It tastes….different” my mother told him (“she hated it,” he thinks)….my birthday cake…my sister-in-law’s moving, surprising gift…59 years….Hollow lonely feeling I get during the start of the holiday season, even in the midst of plenty …so many feelings left over from childhood…leftovers
…which I put into my own Action Bronson Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwich, more dainty than his, though, sans slabs of cold mac n’ cheese and ham, on a soft toasted Portuguese roll. See pictures for the steps, the most important of which is to toast jet-puffed marshmallows (“marshMALLOWS!!” says the Chef, again, in disdain!). I put the gravy on last, but one could pour some between each layer. I did not put in a “moist maker”—a la Monica in “Friends,” because the stuffing was moist-making enough. And the result, truly a marriage of savory gravy, turkey, green beans and stuffing with the sweet potatoes and marshmallows; the cranberry sauce, flavored with orange zest, was a tangy exclamation mark!