Better, thanks.

     Tonight I said to my husband, “I feel happy.” What with a lot of family turmoil of late, it’s been a while since I felt that way, and it took me by surprise. It’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and we had pizza night early so college sophomore son could indulge before heading back to school Sunday afternoon. Amateur pastry chef son-in-law made dough for several pizzas, and darling daughter did most of the assembly. We baked the concoctions in the gas grill on our fabulously remodeled porch, and three young guy friends came by to help with the eating.

     A tablecloth and a jug of flowers remained on the teak table from Thanksgiving dinner. The kids ate snacks and played “Settlers of Catan” there all afternoon. I think I am slow to remove the last signs of the Thanksgiving feast, because it was so good. We had three tables on the porch to seat 20 people, both relatives and friends. Brother-in-law smoked a turkey. Darling daughter roasted sweet potatoes. We heated up a spiral-sliced ham and mashed stacks of russet potatoes. Husband mixed up world’s best stuffing. We had chocolate pecan and mincemeat pies and apple galettes. (Layer apples with spices and butter on a pastry crust, fold the edges in and bake.) I made basil-infused lemonade because a niece requested it. When the pitcher got low, she joked she would take bids on the last glassful.

     Two years ago, Thanksgiving dinner included me, husband and one son. This year, we had college son; darling daughter, her husband and two-year-old; oldest son and his four children; bro-in-law, his wife and two daughters, a friend of one of theirs; mother-in-law; and another family of four, good friends from church. The grown cousins enjoyed catching up. Two-year-old grandson gave six-year-old twin girl cousins fist bumps, and they pretended to be knocked over backwards. He giggled.

     The weather was perfect for sitting on the porch. The homemade cranberry sauce turned out nice. We had good wines. But in the end, the best thing I could think of to say about the day was that it was… normal. I know “normal” can be pretty bad at holidays, with anger and old grudges, so I guess what I mean is that this is the way it ought to be. No single thing made the day so fine, but we were all together, and a lot of unpleasantness was ignored or left behind or just overshadowed by kindness and sharing and love. I’m thankful for that.

It's an Impertinent Little Wine

     One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons shows a host displaying a bottle to his guests. He says, "It's an impertinent little wine, but I think you'll be amused by its pretension." Wine aficionados are always writing that you can taste berry and melon and oak and petunia blossoms and I don't know what-all in various wines, but I have yet to detect any such thing. Once in a while, I buy something relatively expensive to try to elevate my palate, but it never works. I wind up going back to Barefoot and Cupcake Vineyards. 

     And yet, there lives in my memory the Beaujolais nouveau I bought in Paris at the end of the Bellbottoms and Duffel Bag Tour I took around Europe in the fall of 1974. Dimly aware that there was such a thing as a celebrated unveiling of the new Beaujolais, I decided to take some home. I remember the merchant explaining in pantomime why the year on the label was 1973. He put his head down on his folded hands to show that the wine "sleeps" for a year before it is released. I bought two bottles, because I'd read that you could bring two bottles of alcohol into the US without paying any duties. The nice young customs man in New York told me that didn't apply to wine, so technically I owed a tax on it, but it was less than a dollar, so they wouldn't bother to collect it. OK. 

     That wine, uncorked for Thanksgiving, was the most delicious beverage I've ever tasted. It had a crystal-clear fruit flavor, and a "dry" quality utterly different from what wine merchants and friends call "dry." Their dry is just acid compared to that wine's light, fine, unique clarity. "Like drinkable light." Words fail me. I have longed for that taste ever since. I've bought more Beaujolais, but it's just old and dusty grape juice in comparison. I suppose it's hope that makes me buy the expensive wines once in a while, but they always disappoint. I'll have to settle for "This is nice," I suppose. I don't expect to return to Paris any time soon.