Giving Thanks

The story of mine and Lauren's British Thanksgiving. Though probably not something you'll find in a Charlie Brown special, it was lovely nonetheless.

No 36: Host a Sunday roast
I am a child of divorce, and as such, have despised Thanksgiving for the past decade. It’s the only day of the year for which I can’t come up with a King Solomon way of splitting my time. My mother converted to Judaism when she married my father, and has a Southern Baptist upbringing. Christian holidays are easily delegated to her side of the family, with the Jewish days of worship like Passover, Rosh Hashanah and the annual clearance day at Macy’s going to my Dad.

Thanksgiving, however, usually turns into some very un-pilgrim like behavior.

Planning to forgo the day of football and yams, I thought I’d have no problem skipping Thanksgiving, but a chance package from my dear Aunt Amy changed my story. Aunt Amy is my Grammy’s sister and specializes in the kind of flower arranging and sweet tea making that Southern women excel at. She owns a charming decorating store in Crystal River that looks like the inside of a Better Homes and Gardens feature, and sent her far-away-from-home niece an item from her holiday stock. Holding the stack of carefully packaged paper napkins with a print of feathered turkeys, I decided maybe a bit of stuffing’s not such a bad idea.

Zeddy volunteered his flat for me to host a British Thanksgiving, and I’ve been at the business of recipe scouring for four days now. I’ve been able to organize most of the traditional dishes (thrilled I was to find a jar of marshmallow fluff in my supermarket’s foreign foods section), but met a dead end when it came to pumpkin pie. And I hate pumpkin pie. Vegetables do not belong in dessert, but like the can-shaped blob of cranberry sauce that no one will touch, it’s a necessary evil on the Thanksgiving table.

Having walked into every Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose north of the Thames, I asked dozens of confused clerks if they had any canned pumpkin for sale. They looked at me like I was asking for canned pig’s intestines. Discouraged but not swayed, I watched a Martha Stewart tutorial online about how to make the stuff from scratch, a misadventure that saw me carving up a giant orange squash and baking it like a science fair project gone wrong. I was worried it would turn out a bigger disaster than the time I threw Lauren a Harry Potter birthday party and decided to boil my own pumpkin juice.

“Good Lord!” I yelp, as Zeddy slams three over-stuffed bags of breadcrumbs on the kitchen counter. I asked him to run out to the shop and pick up some supplies I’d forgotten, and he’s brought me enough breading to bake the world’s largest fish stick.

“Well I didn’t know how much you’d need,” he replies defensively before dashing to the dining room to put the finishing flourishes on his decorations. Zeddy’s been mysteriously darting in and out of there all day, and he finally calls me in to inspect his work.


Before me is a cornucopia of a table that would have certainly confused my nation’s forefathers. At each place setting a turkey napkin has been dutifully placed, but from there any logic tied to decorative pieces is lost. The place is a festive mess of happy birthday banners, leftover Halloween pumpkins and shiny red Christmas crackers. At each seat lies a box of firework sparklers. We look like we visited a going out of business sale for Parties R Us.


“Zeddy, I don’t think you quite understood the theme.”

The doorbell rings and I head to the entrance as Zeddy begins warming up some ingredients to make mulled wine. The smells of cinnamon and bourbon begin to fill the place, and I open the door to find Russell Bentley in a pale pink shirt. Russell is one of the first people I met in London, when he modeled some men’s clothes at a Stamford Hill boutique for a fashion feature I was writing in our paper’s magazine. An actor/model who used to be in EastEnders, he has brown curly hair and talks to you in such a way that you can’t tell if he wants to date you or give you a makeover.


Zeddy starts handing out mugs of his special drink as guests begin to arrive, and I’m sipping the hot red wine when Richard Ferrer pats me heartily on the back. I quickly put my cup on the counter as it threatens to spill, saying hello to Richard who immediately offers his help in the kitchen. An old friend of Zeddy’s, the pair are ex-colleagues whose greatest business pursuit was the day they decided to spend a full day working in their underwear and broadcast it on the Internet to raise money for charity. Richard is very funny, and currently searching the cupboards for something to pour my homemade gravy in.

“This’ll do,” he shouts, pulling out a cow-shaped creamer pourer.

Sitting at the table I’m pleased with the gathering we’ve drawn. Andrew is across from me and a welcome sight as he’s not asking me to read any sports pages. Jonny has come with his incredibly pregnant wife and they’re discussing why Americans put so much sugar in their foods with Russell, who’s helping himself to seconds of marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes.

Lauren’s wedged between Richard and Zeddy’s friend Lucy, a trendy-looking woman who works for the BBC.

“Erica, what’s this called?” Lucy asks between forkfuls.

“It’s green bean casserole,” I tell her.

“How unusual.”

Between the mulled wine and the company, I’m feeling warmly content. People are eating the food and no one’s fallen over from salmonella poisoning. Richard’s cutting into a turkey leg with the blue plastic freshness tag still stuck on, but he doesn’t seem bothered, and I’m thinking Thanksgiving’s not so bad after all. Though an unusual approach to remembering that first giving of praise, I believe a few new traditions have been forged this evening, especially now that I’ve seen how attractive a pumpkin pie looks with a lit sparkler sticking out of the top.