Food, Friends, and Football
All I knew about Thanksgiving while growing up in Mexico came from NFL football games on TV. My first five years in Austin after moving here in 1984, I learned that Thanksgiving meant long shifts cooking at Threadgill’s, baking hundreds of pies, smelling roast turkey 24-7, and peeling never-ending cases of yams until my hands turned a glowing shade of orange. The whole Thanksgiving thing turned me off for years to come.
In the early Nineties, I became part of a close-knit, hodge-podge group of young friends from many different backgrounds. What we had in common back then was simple: We were young, free, willing to experiment with anything and everything, and always ready to have a good time at it. We called ourselves “the mañana men,” as in “I’ll do it mañana.” During those early years we dated, became roommates, and traveled with one another. We built strong bonds that we knew would last forever. In 1993, two couples that were sharing a house on Franklin Avenue decided to host the Thanksgiving feast for all of us not going somewhere to see our families.
It was the coldest Thanksgiving I remember, with sleet and snow flurries all over Texas, the year of the Cowboys-Dolphins “snow” game. Some of the guys built low wooden tables to accommodate us all. We sat around them on pillows on the floor. Each of us prepared a dish, some traditional, some anything but. I remember Jay brought some kind of Native American dish, probably a succotash, which was really good. We had lots of wine, tons of food, and a bonfire. On that day, the birth of what we came to call “Franksgiving,” I started to grasp the essence of this American holiday, which had no previous meaning to me.
We have kept this tradition through the years, as an opportunity to see each other and prepare some extra special or adventurous dish. We’ve had our share of mishaps, like when Shane decided to fry some turkeys Cajun-style, with mostly disastrous results (we learned to take the giblet bag out first, thaw the turkey completely, that kind of thing). Or the time Keith, deathly allergic to nuts, mistook the oyster stuffing for the pecan stuffing and had to be rushed to the ER. I’ll never forget when Erin, a serious vegetarian, stood watching in disgust as Kirk sliced the rarest, bloodiest prime rib I’ve ever seen. There was always so much to be thankful for: friendship, food, lots of fun, and football on TV.
Life has taken its toll on Franksgiving. Some of us have moved away; some of the bonds we thought unbreakable are being put to the ultimate tests. New friends now join us in absence of others. This year, Lee’s spinach Madeleine – my perennial favorite – had even more bacon, and his first attempt at roast duck was a success; Jonathan’s southern-style ham was succulent; Alena and Miguel’s rosemary mashed potatoes went with everything; Kirk brought a mind-boggling wine selection; Amanda’s peach-strawberry-apple pie and Charlotte’s chocolate torte made my night complete. Again I am thankful for Franksgiving, past, present, and future.
This article appears in December 24 • 2004.
