CHANTILLY
family extended so far even mom's fifth
cousins from a mile down the road and from
mexico city were crowded in with the rest of
us that thanksgiving day in aunt bernice and
uncle melvin's brick-faced 1930's bungalow on
their farm just outside of the village. My
brothers and cousins and second cousins and
children of relatives i no longer remember
grabbed handfuls of grandma's rich chocolate
-chip cookies and ran to the unfinished
basement to play pingpong and house and
create a pecking order that included rankings
for everone we didn't know yet too. Some of
the older kids wouldn't let us younger
cousins watch as they played spin the bottle
and kissed or ran out behind the barn for
short-lived privacy, but i kept returning to
the dessert table, waiting for the okay to be
given, for life to begin. apple pies and
pumpkin pies and mince pies and raisin pies
that would all nearly disappear within
minutes out of the starting gate and cherry
delight and rice crispies treats and don't
forget the annual rivalry between grandma's
plum pudding and grandpa's sister aunt
suzie's. grandma wrapped her thick batter of
flour and eggs and molasses and raisins and
candied fruit in a cloth, tied tight at the
top, and boiled it in a huge kettle for three
hours, on her enclosed porch because her
kitchen was too crowded, steam condensing on
windows and running down clapboard walls, the
air like a sweet steambath. out of its cloth,
the steaming pudding formed a sturdy, dark
rind that locked in the pudding's moist
delights. aunt suzie's pudding, steamed in a
tin mould with a tight lid was more elegant
to look at, but you had to boil a pudding for
three hours to get that wonderful rind, and
every year both puddings were eaten by those
who favored each style with orange sauce or
whipped cream according to their preference.
and i waited till the coast was clear. right
in the middle of this overladen table of
desserts, no one admitting back then to
reducing diets or concerned of fat or
cholesterol or worried about the very
ailments that would kill them off one by one,
right at the heart, the very heart of
thanksgiving, stood the biggest bowl aunt
bernice owned filled to the rim with whipped
cream. last thing to be prepared after the
turkey and farm hams were on their way to the
sideboard to be carved by menfolk eager to
eat so much they had to undo their pants and
let suspenders keep them decent, this final
task - the whipping of the cream. heavy
cream, well chilled, whipped with electric
beaters, vanilla and powdered sugar added
mostly carefully as the beaters whined and
clacked away, spattering apron fronts with
sweet mess. on pie, on pudding, the whipped
cream got dipped and dollopped and only many
years later in france i learned we'd been
eating
chantilly on that midwestern farm, and
i bided my time and waited until everyone was
sated and couldn't bother themselves with a
nerdy kid's preferences, and i took a big soup
bowl from the cupboard and filled it to the
rim with the only desert i wanted. And years
later in france i learned its fancy name that
could not conjure up the childish delight of
making myself sick on whipped cream
thanksgiving thursday surrounded by far-
extended family I barely can recall anymore
in uncle melvin and aunt bernice's brick
bungalow on the farm just south of the village.
© 2009 by Paul Kent Oakley