Hillbilly Thanksgiving

The past few years, my family has spent Thanksgiving weekend with our “extended summer family” at Lake Pillsbury; and this year was no exception. And like always, the weekend ended with a big smile on my face, an even bigger belly, a shake of my head and a remembered love for my hillbilly alter-ego.

Cody and I (the last 2 Gimbels with full time jobs) took Wednesday off and were to drive up together later that afternoon. So after 3 quick hours of work (so much for the day off) I made my way over to Berkeley, CA home of my brother, location of his work and the largest concentration of bad drivers in all of the US. Cody picked me up from BART, and while we waited for his pork fat to be delivered (to make Elk sausage stuffing for Thanksgiving) we headed to Andronicos the classiest, without sarcasm, of grocery stores to pick up some last minute necessities for the weekend – me, the ingredients for “crack” dip and Cody, bloody mary supplies. Looking at our shopping cart of rotisserie chicken, ranch dip, buffalo sauce, cream cheese, vodka, beer, tomato juice and pickled green beans, it could have easily passed for a Thanksgiving dinner – we had all 4 courses!

With the groceries in hand and the pork fat delivered, we were officially on our way. And thanks to Cody’s defensive driving we made it out of Berkeley, avoiding 3 potential car accidents.

We woke up Thursday to a brisk, fall morning and began the preparations for our feast later that day. By 11am and with a phone call from Dana, I knew it was going to be an extra special Thanksgiving… apparently 20 wild turkeys including babies, had come out of the woods and were wandering around in front of her cabin. Dana and Cassidy were inside, by the fire, enjoying the peacefulness of the moment and wanted to share! That is, it was peaceful until Ray showed up, marking his return home with the blast of a shotgun, turkeys scattering and him running into the house with a big grin on his face – Happy First Thanksgiving Cassidy, daddy killed a turkey! Or he at least tried to kill one…the bird was apparently missed (something about not having the right gun on him) and thankfully we had to resort to the store bought bird in the fridge.

And man was it delicious…along with the yams, mashed potatoes, 2 types of stuffing, brussel sprouts, dinner rolls, pumpkin cupcakes, and plenty of wine and champagne. And like years past the feast and party continued throughout the rest of the weekend, with minor breaks for board games, Mexican train, mixing drinks and hanging out with friends and family. Thankfully no additional animals or wildlife were spotted and the weekend remained casualty free.

Happy Thanksgiving!