This is Thanksgiving week, always a busy time when we’re getting ready for the day itself. I went outside about six this morning and the frost was on the trees and grass. The sun hadn’t been up long, and the air was very crisp.

I could see my breath. And just like that, I was taken back

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in memory to Sycamore Hill and Grandmama’s big kitchen. I remember the places on the floor that creaked when you walked across them and the steam rising from big pots on the stove.

Uncle Walter’s walking stick would be hooked onto a chair back and he’d have on his old stained apron, a white shirt and tie and his felt hat.

He always cooked in his hat.

Grandmama would be holding the oven door open, basting the turkey. She’d have on her Goose Girl flour apron.

We children would be sitting at the table making crumbs out of the dry biscuits and Parker house rolls for the dressing.

We were the soldiers in Uncle Walter’s army, and he gave instructions about what to do next.

He’d have one child at the stove stirring the celery and onions in the huge old battered frying pan in a pool of melted butter.

One would be cracking eggs into the big crockery bowl they always used for mixing the dressing, or making eggnog or creaming butter and sugar together for a pound cake. A real one, with a pound of everything.

If we didn’t know how to separate eggs when we began, we certainly knew how before it was over.

We used an old-fashioned wooden-handled hand-turned mixer to beat the eggs and would take turns beating because our arms would get tired.

Uncle Walter firmly believed that if a child could walk they could work, and there were no idle hands in that kitchen. Children were put onto the Earth to fetch and carry for adults, and we were always being called into service to run and get whatever he needed.

The old kitchen was big enough to accommodate many cooks, a fortunate thing as there were many cooks and assistant cooks stirring, chopping, sauteéing and fetching ingredients.

However, there was only one person in that kitchen who was the authority on taste-testing and seasoning. Uncle Walter could be on one side of the kitchen, would dip a spoon into whatever he was preparing and direct a child to carry the spoon all the way across the kitchen to Grandmama, to taste.

“Reba, what does it need?” he’d ask.

She’d always know what was needed and how much to add. I can remember her advising him to be careful with the salt.

“You can always add if it’s needed,” she’d say, “but you can’t take it out.”

Wise words indeed. That’s a rule I follow in my own kitchen.

The old house didn’t have central heat or air. Most of the fireplaces weren’t in use, and the rooms heated relied on kerosene or gas for heat.

The long hall was unheated, and whenever the refrigerator was too full to hold another dish, Grandmama would send a child out into the back hall to put cold dishes on top of the old safe. It was possible to congeal jello in the hall, so there was no danger of food poisoning.

Although they are all gone now, I’ve learned as I grow older that the memories created with them are always with me and color the present as much as they did the past.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

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