Turkey in the bathtub
The other day, I was reminiscing with my friend Kristen about our first Thanksgiving together in New York (10 years ago) – and how it was pretty much the best Thanksgiving that ever existed.
If you’ve never lived far enough away from your family that traveling back home was too much to do for both Thanksgiving and Christmas (or just that time of year), you’ve missed out on something awesome. New York is full of youngsters, as we were, who can’t afford to travel around much and every Thanksgiving was full of drinking and food and dessert.
But the first year was really the most special. Kristen and I had just moved to what would become a terrible place in Sunset Park in Brooklyn and we decided we were going to host Thanksgiving for our friends there. We bought a turkey, which we discovered was too big to thaw in the sink, so my sharpest memory of the night before was of Kristen setting the turkey to thaw in the bathtub, and petting it, thanking it for giving its life so we could have a party.
We made the traditional potatoes and green beans, and what Kristen reminded me of yesterday was that we didn’t have enough plates for everyone to eat off of, and so we ate off saucers and bowls and anything that was a flat enough surface.
Ah, New York, people may think of you as the crowded city, but I think of you as a place where your whole building makes Thanksgiving together and it is awesome. (And I miss you guys.)
(Move to Minnesota.)