avablog

I tend not to stand on tradition. No set way of doing anything is so hallowed in my world that I won’t abandon it in a heartbeat if it’ll make my life easier. And I tend to think of myself as unsentimental (ask my wife). Still, I was looking forward to hosting a Thanksgiving meal at our place this weekend for my family, even if most of the food was coming from Hy Vee.

My dad’s mother and father (but mostly his mother) used to work pretty hard every year to put on an elaborate Thanksgiving meal featuring a lot of food. And the whole family would be there, real Norman Rockwell stuff. But I ain’t all about that. You won’t catch me spending hours in the kitchen before and after a meal that lasts 37 minutes. As I walked up to the deli counter at one of the 15 Hy Vee locations in my town today at lunch, I was feeling pretty good about being able to hold on to the tradition of a Thanksgiving meal while dispensing with all that bothersome cooking.

The attendant I spoke with was suitably friendly and accommodating while fielding my questions about amounts of turkey and dressing and mashed-potato-to-gravy ratios, but I was unprepared for the mind scrambler she was about to lay on me. Turns out Hy Vee offers an entire Thanksgiving meal pre-packaged. Nothing less than warm-and-serve portions of dressing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and gravy. As I ran my fingers over the front of a gorgeously-labeled container of corn bread dressing, I could feel the memory of my grandmother at the stove in her apron slipping further from my mind. The label was nowhere near as beautiful as my memory of the tremendous portions of grandma’s dressing I’d heap on my plate to the exclusion of every other dinner item. But I’ll be thinking about grandma when we sit down to eat this Saturday afternoon, as I always do this time of year, and I’ll hope that Richard Dawkins is right about my grandmother not looking down at me from on high with a disapproving frown.