AN AFFAIR IN SAN FRANCISCO
It's been almost thirty years since we first sat around our dining table in a little hamlet up in the Catskills for Thanksgiving with a group of friends that have for many reasons stuck with us over the years. Even though we've all moved on to various parts of the country the giddiness we shared at our first attempt of cooking a turkey has remained as consistent as the clink of our glasses during the thanks we give on each recurring last Thursday of November. As often as we can and on a revolving basis we recreate our holiday and once again laugh, break a glass or two and enjoy the friendships that have lasted through three decades.
This year we were off to San Francisco where our friends, JoHannah and Adam and their son Roby, now live. We decided to go despite a set of fires that covered the city by the bay with smoke and an air quality index that had surpassed the world's most polluted cities. We were on the edge of canceling our plane tickets but at the last minute went ahead with our plans and journeyed on.
Rick flew in from New York on the Monday before, Emmy and I flew in to meet him on Tuesday. JoHannah picked us up at the airport.
It was a bit eerie as we drove back to the Glen Park district of San Francisco seeing groups of people out walking the streets their faces covered in construction masks like survivors from an earth ending apocalypse. Some of the children having masks with built-in aspirators stood by bus stops in silence the joy of childhood held at bay.
JoHannah tried to reassure us that the rain was due to come the following day and drown out most of the smoke. We prayed for rain.
So with the rest of Tuesday we made our lists and did most of our preparatory shopping before the rain hit.
Wednesday we cooked, we cleaned
and Emmy did the flowers we had purchased at the flower district the day before.
Even Delilah got into the act.
We did this all in a home built on a hill in the Glen Park district of a city that was once shook to the ground.
We finished that evening with our traditional glazed ham and biscuits. You can't get much better than that
Thursday was devoted to doing all of the finishing touches in preparation for a sit down dinner for fifteen.
The pies are always the last thing to go into the oven and we do this just as everyone sits down to dinner.
The Noritake china was pulled into service along with enough depression stemware to make sure everyone had a glass for anything they needed to drink.
The house's history on Diamond Street has always added to its uniqueness. It was not the original house that had occupied the site. The front portion of the house had actually been built somewhere else and moved to the site then added onto over the years.
Adam, being an architect, continued to embellish and renovate the house at various times throughout their stewardship of the building.
We'd be entertaining and doing appetizers on the main floor once the guests arrived with a bar set up in the dining room
and appetizers laid out on the kitchen counter.
Last minute tasks were accomplished without a hitch until the turkey made its entrance. I had been in charge of pulling the turkey that had been marinating in a brine bath for the past day and a half out of the plastic bag with the brining mixture and getting it into the roasting pan. It was Adam's job to take the turkey out of the oven and plate it for display before carving it at the table. It was then that one of the guests informed us that we had roasted and then displayed our lovely bird upside down. One should never expect perfection because if it's attained there is no room for improvement and if one cannot improve the joy of discovery and learning is gone. Our turkey was a case in point of imperfection and a good opportunity for learning and improving.
Dinner was served in the sunroom on the top floor under a star filled sky. Guests arrived around five in the early evening carrying trays of appetizers and a broad selection of wines.
Adam had built an extension onto the table so that all fifteen of us could sit comfortably around.
Emmy's petite flower arrangements lined the center of the table. Adam had adorned the chandeliers with curly willow branches and lit the chandelier candles illuminating the dinner.
To make room at the dining table a serving buffet had been set up at the end of the room that overlooked the vista of lower San Francisco.
The menu consisted of Brussels sprouts sautéed with pancetta and onions, a sweet potato casserole with bacon and Gruyere, cranberry sauce, scalloped potatoes, mashed rutabaga, a beet, walnut and pomegranate salad and the turkey we continued to display upside down.
Happy Thanksgiving to all. Not sure of the local for next year's November event. This one will be a hard one to beat.
