To each Thanksgiving its crisis

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, in spite of the fact that every year, it seems, there is an unexpected crisis: like the year, on a snowy Michigan Thanksgiving day, when my then ten-year-old oldest borrowed my brand-new cross-country skis and skied downhill with them, snapping the skis in two and barely escaping the same damage to his spine. Or November the year before last during a heat wave in Cairo, when I tried to prepare a traditional American Thanksgiving feast in 90 degree weather, without fresh cranberries or pumpkin. This year, I was looking forward to the quietest, most drama-free Thanksgiving ever. Until my son called to announce that when he came home for the holiday he would help me out by frying the turkey out on the back deck. Now I don’t fry anything, let alone something that requires 5 gallons of peanut oil, but he reassured me that he has all the equipment necessary and that he fries turkeys all the time for tailgate parties. We didn’t count on the weather this morning; it is raining, but not enough to derail the plan. At the last moment it turns out that a crucial piece of equipment was forgotten, the hook with which to lower the turkey into the oil and extract it post-cooking. A gardening hand rake was used as a substitute. At the moment the oil is bubbling furiously and the turkey has been consigned to its gruesome end, leaving the oven helpfully free to bake potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing and tarte Tatin. Very shortly- it’s amazing how quickly a turkey fries- the hour of truth will be at hand. May this be an uneventful Thanksgiving!