I know it's Thanksgiving. I got "the" phone call.
We have a family recipe for a sweet potato dish. It doesn't really originate in our family. I got it from a co-worker about thirty years ago. It's half way between a vegetable side dish and a sumptuous dessert but we count it as a veggie. There are similar recipes on the web but nothing quite the same and definitely nothing as easy. It's a melange of sweet potato, pecans and lots of sugar.
This dish has been part of Dear Daughter's thanksgiving dinner since she was about ten years old. (You can do the math.) In the beginning she merely ate the dish, for many years she helped prepare it, and since marrying and moving to California, she is responsible for getting it on the table for her own family. I have told her the recipe in person and on the phone, I've written it down on a special recipe card and given it to her, I've emailed it in text form and more recently from my official recipe program. But every year, a day or two before Thanksgiving, the phone rings. Sometimes she is calling from work and will stop at the store on her way home. Often, thanks to tne miracle of cell phones, she is in the grocery store buying cranberry sauce and apple pie ingredients. Once in a while she is at home, making a list and checking it twice.
But always, she is calling for "the" recipe. She doesn't even have to ask, I can tell by the slightly embarrassed pause why she is calling. Being a mom, I have to fuss a little and remind her that I sent her the recipe last year (and every year for at least ten before that). This year, feeling somewhat more fragile after everything that has happened in the last six months, I had to point out that I might not always be "here" to share the recipe. We had a good laugh about the possibility of her being able to reach me via a seance should the need arise...when the need arises, I should say.
But pulling out my Mom's psychiatric license, I've decided it's not as simple as a lost slip of paper. We play a sweet mother-daughter game every Thanksgiving. The recipe is a connection, a way for her to say I still need you and for me to be there to save the day once more. We aren't together for Thanksgiving but there is something we share through the years and the miles, something more than a family recipe.
We have a family recipe for a sweet potato dish. It doesn't really originate in our family. I got it from a co-worker about thirty years ago. It's half way between a vegetable side dish and a sumptuous dessert but we count it as a veggie. There are similar recipes on the web but nothing quite the same and definitely nothing as easy. It's a melange of sweet potato, pecans and lots of sugar.
This dish has been part of Dear Daughter's thanksgiving dinner since she was about ten years old. (You can do the math.) In the beginning she merely ate the dish, for many years she helped prepare it, and since marrying and moving to California, she is responsible for getting it on the table for her own family. I have told her the recipe in person and on the phone, I've written it down on a special recipe card and given it to her, I've emailed it in text form and more recently from my official recipe program. But every year, a day or two before Thanksgiving, the phone rings. Sometimes she is calling from work and will stop at the store on her way home. Often, thanks to tne miracle of cell phones, she is in the grocery store buying cranberry sauce and apple pie ingredients. Once in a while she is at home, making a list and checking it twice.
But always, she is calling for "the" recipe. She doesn't even have to ask, I can tell by the slightly embarrassed pause why she is calling. Being a mom, I have to fuss a little and remind her that I sent her the recipe last year (and every year for at least ten before that). This year, feeling somewhat more fragile after everything that has happened in the last six months, I had to point out that I might not always be "here" to share the recipe. We had a good laugh about the possibility of her being able to reach me via a seance should the need arise...when the need arises, I should say.
But pulling out my Mom's psychiatric license, I've decided it's not as simple as a lost slip of paper. We play a sweet mother-daughter game every Thanksgiving. The recipe is a connection, a way for her to say I still need you and for me to be there to save the day once more. We aren't together for Thanksgiving but there is something we share through the years and the miles, something more than a family recipe.
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