Virtual Thanksgiving, With Love: A Mothers Stuffing Spans Miles - Patch.com

NORTH FORK, NY — I tell this story every Thanksgiving, but this year it was even more meaningful.

When I was growing up, at every holiday, my grandmother made the stuffing that her mother had made before her. The recipe was always the same: Sausage meat, onion, celery, white bread, butter, thyme, sage, pepper.

Nanny would stuff her turkey every year and without fail, my mother would invariably head to the oven while the turkey was roasting and sneak a large spoonful out of the bird. That drove my Nanny crazy but oh, how my mother loved that stuffing.

When I was older, my mother taught me how to make the stuffing.

And when she was sick, when cancer had stolen her Thanksgivings and Christmases, when she was thin and frail with only memories and could barely speak, I asked her, what can I make for you? Desperate to have her eat, I'd have cooked anything, gone anywhere for the perfect takeout. My mother wanted stuffing. Our family recipe.

So on that hot August day, I went to the store and got the ingredients, crying as I tried so hard, still a new cook, to prepare it exactly the way my mother liked it. The kitchen was so hot, and I was rushing. We didn't have much time, and I wanted her to have something that she truly wanted, to eat.

As it turned out, the stuffing wasn't perfect. The celery wasn't chopped finely enough or cooked long enough. It was clearly too painful for my mother to eat that celery. But when I asked her, sitting by her bedside, for what would be one of the last times, if it was good, she smiled, her smile as wide as all the years of love we'd shared. It was delicious, she said. The best stuffing she'd ever tasted. That was the last thing I ever cooked for my mother.

Every year, I make that stuffing recipe, but now I bake it outside of the turkey. I have the original piece of paper my mom jotted the recipe down on framed in my kitchen.

This year, of course, I was not able to be with my son for Thanksgiving. He lives in Los Angeles and I live in New York and traveling didn't make sense, not this year. But we planned a Zoom and made due, the best we could, so that we could be safe and eating together again as soon as possible.

I went into the holiday with a feeling of sadness. I bought all the ingredients for the stuffing, for the whole turkey dinner, really, because even though there would be no big gathering, it seemed impossible to be waking up on Thanksgiving morning without having to wrestle with an oversized bird. Tradition, it means something.

A few days before Thanksgiving, my son called me. He and his roommates were planning their Thanksgiving. And of all the recipes I've ever served at our holiday tables, he asked for one. One single recipe.

My mother's stuffing.

I sent it to him, and this time, there were happy tears. How my mother would love to know that her recipe was in his hands, that her memory lives on in all his future holidays.

So much love in my heart for my grandmother, for my mother, and for my son. This stuffing, it's brought us full circle.

And on Thanksgiving, I learned something. I learned that love lives on. It's a force so strong that no pandemic can touch its ferocity.

Virtual Thanksgiving held a lot of meaning, meaning I never expected. It began with the call at 6 a.m. (his time) from my son, wanting to watch the parade the way we always have. We waited as we do every year for our favorite balloons, most especially Snoopy, and texted each other when they appeared in front of Macy's in Herald Square.

From the virtual Zoom dinner, with the same faces who've gathered around our Thanksgiving table for more than 25 years, to texting Billy as he prepared that family stuffing for the first time — he kept me up to date on every step, peppering me with questions to be sure it was done to perfection — it was a day that showed me that it's not about the food or the trappings or the table set with that wash-by-hand china.

It's not about every single thing being perfect, something I think all of us who have prepared holiday meals for gatherings have worried about. It's about people, about deeply rooted tradition, about being close, no matter what it takes. It's about love that endures no matter what the restrictions or challenges.

I'm not saying that it wasn't hard, because it was, very. But being able to see the beauty in this holiday was unexpected and really wonderful.

And when the day was done, my son called, and I asked him the question that I'd been wondering about all day: How was the stuffing? Did it taste like mine? Like my mother's?

"Exactly," he said.

I knew then that tradition and love is strong enough to carry us through any storm. And for that, I am truly thankful.

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