Do you have any funny or embarrassing Thanksgiving memories?

By Robin H.

Yes! It was the first Thanksgiving after Gordy and I were married in August 1977. Gordy was a senior in college and I was working full time in the Emergency Room at St. Patrick’s hospital in Missoula, Mt. I was blessed to have Thanksgiving off, and I was very excited about making my first Thanksgiving dinner, including turkey and homemade pumpkin pie. I hadn’t ever wanted to learn to cook while I was at home…well, that was a mistake. First I have to tell you about the pumpkin pie. I had never made one before. In fact, I don’t even like pumpkin pie, but I thought it was basically mandatory to make one for Thanksgiving dinner. So, I bought a pie shell and baked it in the oven, then I made the pumpkin pie filling, poured it in the baked pie shell and baked the whole thing again for 1 hr. Yes, you read that right, I basically baked it twice, once for the crust and then again for the whole pie. It was terrible. When Gordy went to cut a piece, the whole thing was solid as a rock and lifted completely out of the pie tin. It was unsalvageable and I have never, ever made another pumpkin pie since. Besides, Gordy’s favorite pie is apple and mine is coconut cream, and I make those just fine thank you very much!

Now, the day after Thanksgiving I was feeling very homesick. I had never been away from my family before and had only been in Missoula 3 months. Plus working nights at the hospital meant I hadn’t made any friends yet. So I wanted to make my mom’s turkey bone soup, which she made every year with the leftover turkey bones. When we called them on Thanksgiving day I asked her for the recipe, and I wrote down every word. I was very excited to make this special soup, and knew it would help me feel closer to home.

I proceeded to put the turkey carcass in my big pot, with the seasonings, and let it cook for several hours. When it came time to put the rest of the soup together, I proceeded to pour the entire pan of turkey broth into the strainer to catch the bones with NOTHING under the strainer. Gordy walked in about that exact time and said, “what are you doing? why are you pouring all the broth down the drain?” I said, “this is how my mom always makes her soup”. He said, “no way…..that is the broth that you put the rest of the ingredients in!” I stubbornly refused to understand what he was saying. But here’s the problem: if I had ever paid attention to when my mom made the turkey bone soup, I'd have noticed her picking the meat off the boiled bones. I saw them in the strainer in the sink and I didn’t understand that she had already poured off and saved the liquid for the soup base! Sigh…….! Now I know and I make a really good Turkey bone soup and I always think of my mom. But boy was I embarrassed!