The holiday season approaches in all of its enchanting glory and disenchanting realities. The pre-holiday grocery trip can be either or both but is required for any holiday preparation. Even early in the week before Thanksgiving, Ingles bustles with activity and crowds. Christmas candies, stacks of boxed fruitcakes and jars of marshmallow cream greet shoppers along with painful renditions of Christmas carols. The buggy, with Rem driving the attached car and repeatedly suggesting that I buy bananas, fills quickly before I even leave the produce section.
We wind our way up and down aisles and I stop in the middle of aisle five to help an older gentleman in a black, buttoned wool coat who reminds me of my father locate the spice section. We follow the alphabetically ordered spices to the ground cloves when a phone rings in his coat pocket. He hesitates because his hands are currently filled with the cloves, a handwritten list on lined notebook paper, and the small hand-held basket with a lemon, bag of celery, and a box of brown sugar. I take the basket from him so that he can answer the phone. “She always forgets to put something on the list,” he smiles in appreciation and takes the phone from his pocket. “You are lucky I’m not in the check-out line,” he gently chides into the phone. “What have you forgot?”
Rem and I leave the gentleman and make our way down the aisle. I study the basket to see what items Rem tossed among our Thanksgiving necessities. I only notice two boxes of unwanted baking soda. Last week I purchased frozen baked potato halves with bacon and cheese. I didn’t find them until I unloaded the groceries at home. No takers for the potatoes, although I have offered and even tried to pack them in Craig’s lunch, so they sit in my freezer. Rem’s purchased large bags of shredded cheese and cartons of yogurt. He swipes these items from the bottom shelves of the dairy section - items that sit at eye level to the car that he insists on riding in for all grocery trips. I never see how they actually get into the basket but Rem often takes short breaks and cackles as he runs around the cart and then jumps into the car again.
Some shoppers angrily make their way down the aisles, older women wearing deep set frowns, filling buggies with items needed for a Thanksgiving feast, disgruntled by the crowds and the traffic jam at the canned cranberry sauce. Others seem oblivious to the upcoming holiday and purchase the usual assortment of meats and vegetables or beer and Eggos.
I especially enjoy the shoppers who arrive in clusters of multi-generational groups or committed couples infused with holiday spirit eager to help each other. Visiting mothers seem befuddled by the grocery store’s layout, shopping with daughters and grandchildren who happily meander back and forth through the store with the promise of delectable homemade pies. Kids keep moms from forgetting key ingredients like mini marshmallows while young moms ponder quantities necessary to feed twelve or more people. Couples divvy up dishes on the spot and go in separate directions to gather needed ingredients. Men push baskets purposefully and lift heavy, bagged turkeys for wives anxious to return home to welcome college kids or far flung family members.
I eaves drop on one group that keeps appearing in the same aisle as I do as we make our way through the store. One of the women, already sporting a Christmas sweater (amply filling the tree that grows from her waist to just below her chin, the real bells that adorn the tree tinkling when she walks) pushes her elderly mother in a wheel chair. The other daughter walks just ahead of them pushing the grocery basket. “Now, Mom, what do we need for your stuffing?” she asks. The older woman’s hands shake as she counts off sausage, walnuts and cornmeal. All three seem to be enjoying this stage of their holiday together. The daughters retrieve the items and they move to the next dish. The mother laughs about Aunt Joyce’s gravy and the tinkling daughter remembers another of Aunt Joyce’s mishaps. I finish before they do and find long lines at the three open registers, providing ice-breakers to those of us waiting next to each other as we all wonder aloud why the front of the store is lined with thirteen registers. (if not to use for the holidays, then when?)
I enjoy cooking for Thanksgiving and have every year that we have been in Asheville. Most years bring family members our way and for many years our elderly neighbors joined us. This year our English friends will share our table. Generally, I prepare the same meal whether we have friends and family or just us sitting around the table. Fresh, tasty oysters for stuffing, are difficult to come by unless some form of my family from Louisiana joins us but we can get by with a Carolina shrimp stuffing in a pinch. My dinners resonate with traditional dishes from my family. Sometimes I stuff mirlitons. I always bake pecan pie. This also means that my recipes serve no less than fifteen (and sometimes more). Craig marvels at the huge quantities needed for so few people. No worries. I expect my extravagant efforts at Thanksgiving to last at least a week. When we have a particularly large gathering I am stunned that by Saturday we have run out of leftovers. I want to hoard the delicious dishes and just keep reheating turkey and opening cans of cranberry sauce. No luck. My brother asks for a second piece of pie (the one I marked for Sunday night after the kids went to bed). The mirlitons really do taste like Grandmama’s and vanish quickly. Even Lise’s sweet potato balls (now tradition, I am told) disappear like candy. Perhaps because with hidden mini marshmallows in the centers of them, they taste like candy.
Now that the shopping’s done, I can roll up my sleeves, open a bottle of wine, gather my little sous chefs and get to work.
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