It’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I’m on the C train heading toward my sisters to watch my neice for the night. There’s a man to my right with in-ears molded for his iPhone and an Obama pin on his green canvas jacket. The door right next to me only slides open on one side. Luckily, there’s not many people on the train this evening. It’s late in the day on a rainy, Fall, Sunday.
Thanksgiving is an easy Holiday for Jews, which is why so many of us probably like it. It’s like showing up for class and getting an A in Being American -just show up, eat, and go home. No synagogue. No guilt. No main characters or traditions like gifts or fireworks or anything else that might require stressing out (do you even know what it’s like to go to the kosher butcher?)
This year My mom was off duty to her dismay (she likes making this holiday), and so I brought Starr and we went to my sister’s in-laws since we were holiday orphans. Starr made a Feta Dip that was good, but was strong and bit too salty fro all that feta (I was hoping for pumpkin pie). Overall, the food was nice and we didn’t overstay our welcome since my sister had to get her kids home at a decent hour (kids are the perfect exit strategy).
It was a pretty straightforward Thanksgiving, unlike, say, my aunts on Saturday where we went to spend some time that we missed Thursday, with my dad and grandma. There, my neice stands on chairs and throws imaginary balls to evryone. My nephew tells my aunt to use her ‘indoor voice’ when she’s talking too loud (always). We start the meal with chocolate hip cookies and Tostitos. And this is all around a main course of vegetable lasagna which happened to be really good.
There’s a lot of kids there and between my cousin Jodi (19), Liat (18), Stacey (16), and Starr (21), it almost felt like I was in The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants.
Last night Starr and I got pretty drunk at our friends concert at the Bowery Ballroom. We got into a fight over chicken fingers and onion rings at 3:30 in the morning in front of the bulletproof glass at Palace Fried Chicken. We ended up getting the 6piece chicken smackers an I took some Laughing Cow cheese and put it on a pita chip for her. Unfortunately, this didn’t appease her. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and collapsed into bed.
I awoke with a headache. I took two ibuprofen, and then a third one later. I tried to get away cause I wanted to watch football but more, I wanted to figure out how to backup legally purchased DVDs on my mac. I had borrowed Fiddler OnThe Roof from my grandmother, and promised I’d get it back to her soon. But it wasn’t so easy. It was a rainy, nasty day and we decided eventually to grab a late breakfast at a place called Autour Du Monde.
This is a really nice cafe/restaurant in a neighborhood that doesn’t really have the clientele (yet), so it wasn’t surprising that we were the only ones in the place. I was cranky, and was getting upset that I wasn’t getting water poured down my throat instantly, or that the coffee didn’t come faster. But it is a french place, so I let it go (til my stomach started to growl). The food eventually did come out and it’s really, really good. A few more customers came in too, by the time we left. I had a poached egg on a brioche(?) that I thought was a little sandwich, and Starr had the Veggie Burger (which wasn’t that good). I could never go out of my way for Autour Du Monde (not like 12 Chairs), but I would like it to stay in business, if, for nothing else, it keeps yet another hairdresser out of that neigborhood.
I guess I ate more than enough this Thanksgiving weekend. What more could I ask for than a country that allows me to eat so many different flavors in just a few days. Did I mention I went to Dinosaur BBQ too?
abzME.com 