Lucy, Carl, and Early Thanksgiving
Every year our friends Carl and Ly showed up at our door for Early Thanksgiving and our dog Lucy, who passed maybe eight years ago, barked incessantly…but only at Carl. It would go on for at least 15 minutes, and sometimes more, much longer than her usual greeting for any other guest. No one else, just Carl. It was disruptive, and it happened every year.
Ly and Carl are the only friends who have been present at every Early Thanksgiving since we started hosting them some 22 or 23 years ago. So Lucy knew Carl; it wasn’t as if she had never met him before. But we couldn’t figure out why she treated him this way. We thought that maybe it was Carl’s big beard that scared her. But Lucy never knew me without a big beard too, so that seemed unlikely. Perhaps it was the smell of Carl’s dog on his clothes. But then why wouldn’t Lucy bark at Ly, who I’m sure carried their dog’s scent as well? Maybe she didn’t like men, but there were other men whom she would leave well enough alone. It dawned on me after many years that we misunderstood Lucy’s barking. She wasn’t threatened by Carl. She wasn’t guarding our house or protecting our children. Rather Lucy remembered Carl and was happy to see him. I realized why: at Early Thanksgiving, Carl holds the highly esteemed job of carving the turkey.
Lucy was a smart dog who was very much guided by food, and it got her in trouble. She was a sit-and-wait-predator and often found success. She would lie under our daughter at the table when she was young, waiting patiently for tasty morsels to drop, as some always did. If we left the room for a minute with food unguarded on the table and Lucy lying innocently on the floor pretending to be asleep, she pounced, waiting for such an opportunity. We frequently came home from work exhausted to find kitchen trash strewn across the floor, despite the fact that it had been securely locked in a cabinet. Lucy learned to open a cabinet several doors down and find her way to the trash as if successfully searching for the Northwest Passage.
When Carl came to the door each Early Thanksgiving, Lucy knew his role and was thrilled to see him. So she barked. She didn’t want him to sit down and enjoy a few appetizers with the rest of the guests. Carl was here for her and she wanted him to get to work. Always guided by food, she knew she would be the beneficiary of spills, drips, and probably a few intentional turkey scraps. Lucy barked at Carl incessantly because she was telling him “Get into the kitchen. It’s time to carve the turkey.”
Enjoy your Thanksgiving.
Here is this year’s Early Thanksgiving menu:
Appetizers:
Turkey larb in endive boats with pickled onions
Fried polenta triangles with pesto and fresh mozzarella
Mushroom and leek galette with gruyere cheese
Plate of fresh raw vegetables
Black bean tostada chips with pico de gallo and cotija cheese
Toast cups with caramelized onion, bacon, fig jam, and Manchego cheese
Butternut squash knishes
Main Meal:
Gravy
Mashed potatoes
Corn pudding
Green beans with fried shallots
Cranberry chutney
Dessert (made and brought by friends):
Apple pie
Chocolate raspberry cake à la Simca
Grandma Terry’s cheesecake
Flourless chocolate cake
Vanilla and lavender rice puddings with rum raisins
Max, this is such a sweet memory of our years together, sharing good friends and good food, that we shared it with our own extended family this Thanksgiving, reading it aloud over a meal that’s almost (?) as good as yours! Here’s to many years of Early Thanksgivings!
Yes, good memories, and hopefully many more to come.