…but the work has just begun. I did the usual Thanksgiving thing - roasted a turkey breast-down so it’d baste itself. Guests brought everything else and we feasted like the dickens. (I’m not actually sure what “dickens” are, but hopefully they never went hungry.)

When everyone was gone, I filled my stockpot with what was left of the turkey. After boiling, then simmering, I strained the mess through the colander, jarred up what you see in the attached picture, and filled the pot again with bones, flesh, and fresh water.

So, I’m one-third through with the boilings, and it’s 9:15. I have to do this two more times before I can go to bed, and I think I have just enough energy to do that. Thankfully, we sat down to eat at 2:30 - I think one of the notes I made for myself is to eat at noon next year, so I can start canning broth lots sooner.

Years ago, there was a woman who opened a restaurant of sorts on East Main in Burnsville - before Mary Jane’s and before whoever those two women were (“Creekside” something?) before her. I think it was in the same building; not sure. The woman called herself the Queen [of Something], and actually wore a tiara. It was from her that I learned you can make broth from the same bird three times. That had never occurred to me, and I’m not sure it’s something my mother had done.

I’ve never been big on cooking, but if I do cook I generally do whatever I think I remember Mom did. I’ve got her German potato salad nailed, and I have a recipe box mostly filled with things she wrote out for me. I wish, I wish, I wish I could reproduce her oatmeal cookies. I have tried; can’t do it. I’ve thought that it had something to do with the climate wherever I was (I have never lived with air conditioning, not even in Florida). The cookies always puffed up, and wouldn’t lay flat and chewy-yet-crispy like hers. I wonder if I could get them right if I were back in Wisconsin.

But if I’m canning, I’m good, which I don’t need to be because I am not feeding a dozen people. Tomatoes may be the easiest thing to can, but we did so much of that when I was a kid, that if I never see another tomato, it’ll be too soon. I do remember asking Dad if I could come work with him across the road at Big Bend Lumber Company, and he said, “Maybe when you’re ten.” I was really jazzed about that, but didn’t take him up on it. I did like to go down there when they closed at noon on Saturdays. All the guys, including my Dad, who did not smoke, would light up stogies and yak til the last ash was knocked out. They let me take the bottle caps out of the soda machine; can’t tell you what I did with them, but it was like getting a present.

Today has been a very nice present, sharing food and laughs and a couple of weird stories with a bunch of friends. Wish you’d been here.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.

Lucy