Growing up there weren’t any family traditions or gatherings in the kitchen cooking as a family, as I had a not so good childhood. I’ve had a hard life even up to now. At about the age of 9 things started to get rough in my home. My mother was an alcoholic and father weren’t around, separated from my mother and had drug problems. By 10 I was alone a lot, getting up for school by myself every day and coming home to an empty house. When it came to meals, to be honest, I can’t remember much as I just ate whatever I could find. Whether it was bread, on occasion broccoli or even a can item. There were times I had a few dollars of my mother’s food stamps and would get something from the corner store. So, needless to say, there weren’t any gatherings in the kitchen cooking together. But I did promise myself that when I grew up, I was determined to have special moments and family togetherness with my children.
In January 2001, I moved in with my high school boyfriend, and we married on April 20, 2001. When it came to cooking, I cooked supper mostly ever night, BBQ chicken, steak, pasta and two of his favorite’s minestrone soup and Portuguese soup. A couple a nights a week we liked to order out, pizza, Portuguese food or fast food. When it came close to celebrating our first holiday season together as a married couple, I remembered the promise I made my self-many years earlier. We didn’t ever cook together but our first Thanksgiving together we did to make his favorite, Portuguese stuffing.
Our first Thanksgiving approached, and I woke up early and walked into my galley kitchen with my counter on one side and stove and fridge on the other. I pulled out the turkey from the fridge that I prepped the night before. In High School I majored in Culinary Arts, so prepping my first Thanksgiving dinner, I was ready for. I started to pull out the giblets, rinsed the turkey, coated it with some butter and seasoning it. Placing the turkey in the oven things was on its way for a what I hoped would be the first of many great Thanksgivings with my new husband and my family.
As some time went on that day, it was time to start cooking the rest of the Thanksgiving food. What I was looking forward to the most was cooking with my husband. When it was time, I called my husband into the kitchen, him on one side of the counter me the other. My husband got out the pot and added chicken broth, water, chourico and placed it on the stove to boil. I asked him about adding some seasonings, but he said there was enough flavor in the chourico and broth. When he left the kitchen for a minute, I reached into my cabinet above my stove and pulled out some seasonings, garlic powder, pepper and onion powder and added it to the boiling broth. While the chourico was boiling both of us started to get the four vienna breads ready. As we both stood at the kitchen counter with a very large bowl, we pulled apart each vienna bread by hand into small pieces. While prepping the bread I remember thinking this sucks and is a lot of work this better taste good.
At that moment he started to talk about starting a family, as that brought so much happiness to me it was nerve wracking, considering how my life was and wanted to make sure my family had so much more than I did. We spoke about wanting to start right away, unbeknownst to us it was going to take ten years, many tears, lots of negative pregnancy test and one round of In vitro Fertilization before we we’re going to get to hold our little boy in our arms. We were so excited at the time thinking next year we could have a little one at the table for the holidays with us. “My husband said he wanted two kids”, and I did too, we thought God willing one boy and one girl. I wanted to name our boy after him, but he said, “he didn’t want his son named after him”. For a girl we loved Makayla. We both were also talking about the family that wasn’t around anymore to enjoy this day with us. My father who passed when I was 13 and mother that passed when I was 21. My brother was in and out of trouble, so I never had him around in my life. His mom and him always had falling outs. She was a very stricted, stuck in her ways kind of person.
As we finished up the bread, the chourico was ready, we both were excited as it was getting closer to our Thanksgiving celebration. I pulled out my chopper and we placed each piece of chourico in and continued until all was grounded and then he dumped it into the large bowl full of vienna bread. He started to pour the liquid from the pot the chourico was in as I mixed it by hand, “I yelled out crap this is hot”, and he started to laugh and all I could think was I hope this never changes and we can continue this every year. Once it was all mixed, I placed it into the glass Pyrex dish and my husband added a little more liquid on top, so the stuffing doesn’t dry out. Placing it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes our stuffing was ready.
I was so happy as he continued to help me with the rest of the Thanksgiving prep, carrots and turnips, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, picked tray, corn, biscuits and basing the turkey in-between. This was something new for me, family time.
As the buzzer went off for the stuffing, we were ready for our celebration. Family started to arrive and there was so much laughter and happiness, one of my best days ever. All I could think was I can’t wait to do this every year with my husband and hopefully adding children to it.
As many years passed by after our first Thanksgiving together, my brother was murdered when I was 27, so more family had been lost. At 31 we were blessed with a baby boy and unfortunately when he was six my husband passed away. I am just very thankful for the 19 years we had together and the short time he had with our son, that we ended up naming after him, Michael. To this day I still carry on with making the Portuguese stuffing every Thanksgiving, but now by myself and think of all the memories that him and I made over all the years we had together.