Thanksgiving

This year it was a bit different.

It's now 12:44 am, technically Friday. This year my Thanksgiving was a day of work (regular) followed by coming back to my apt. and cooking. Normally Thanksgiving-- well, Thanksgiving used to involve getting up late (because I was off), followed by wandering around/cleanng in my PJs while Mom was cooking. The parade would be on the kitchen TV and maybe in the living room, but highly doubtful because no one was in there consistently enough to be paying attention. The house smells really good, because of all the cooking Mom is doing, and at about 4 pm people start coming over and eventually everyone is over and we start eating. Mom made rolls (probably white, garlic, and rye), and Grandma's soup. Oh, and maybe an appetizer and salad. That's followed by turkey (made in the roaster with garlic and paprika sprinkled on top and baby carrots, celery, and onion surrounding it), stuffing kugel, cranberry sauce (jelled and whole berry), and maybe cranberry kugel. A bunch of other side dishes, because...well, food = love. And then dessert, which is cookies and cake and tea.

This year I made my Grandma's vegetable soup. I had to split it into two pots, because it was too much for one; one came out good and the other needs to cook more, so it's in the fridge overnight and tomorrow I will attempt to cook it some more. But the one that was done came out well. I'm excited for the other one :) It was my first time making soup in a long time (I made soup once and burned it. In college. This was my first time making soup since then), and the first time I tried to make my Grandma's vegetable soup. It's...it's a tradition. It's a hard one to follow, because of the associations with Thanksgiving, and missing everyone, but it's still...it came out good.

The last Thanksgiving that my Grandma was alive for was a little different than the previous ones. Everyone but my mom was at my Grandma and Grandpa's apartment (my mom was in the hospital with the port infection-turned-sepsis). We had Thanksgiving dinner as usual-ish, including the soup, and that Shabbos my Grandma had a very severe stroke that caused her death a week later. I remember eating the last portion of soup from the batch she made. We froze it, and when I had it...I remember thinking, "This is the last soup Grandma made." It was always "Grandma's soup." Kind of like Grandma coffee (but that was a little coffee and a lot of milk; pretty much how I drink coffee today still), but not. My Grandpa wrote out the recipe for me after Grandma died, and my mom eventually typed it up and put it in the recipe book she made for me. It has vegetables and meat and soup mix...and the last ingredient is "1 brocha that it comes out good." I think that's what made it so good.

May we all recognize and be grateful for the brachot that we have in our lives, and always remember to add the "1 brocha that it comes out good." In everything that we do.