Gobble! Gobble! Go!
Dad's job was to get the cake, ours was to get him out of the bar
It was Thanksgiving in the early 1970s and the top was down and the heater was blasting as is the Northern California custom. My dad was still driving then, open can of Pabst Blue Ribbon nestled safely between his legs, as he navigated our newish 1969 white Chevy Impala convertible from our house on Castro Street across town to North Beach to pick up the St. Honore Cake from Stella Pastry.
It was dad’s job to get the cake and get back in time to make his amazing mashed potatoes. It was our job to make sure that he did. I think my mom was happy to have some quiet to prep and roast the turkey that had to have the tips of its drumsticks cut off to close the oven door. Later, the black and white linoleum floor of our big kitchen would be filled with the feet of the many cooking generals in my family, including my grandmother Dee who, though relieved she wasn’t hosting Thanksgiving anymore, had a lot of opinions on how it should be done. I looked forward to this daddy field trip every year.
Driving down Market Street under a crisp blue sky, wind whipping my bangs and warm air blasting my red Keds, I lorded it over my sister who was stuck in the middle of the red leather bench seat from the grown-up passenger seat. I cranked the window all the way down.
“Gobble! Gobble!” I screamed, echoing my dad and my sister, causing an older man to jump who had been standing quietly at the corner of Church Street waiting for the crossing light to change. Dad screamed the loudest, in the falsetto he reserved for his favorite stories. We all giggled like mad. The game was to get in as many gobbles as possible before my dad pulled the car up in front of Cookie’s on Kearny Street for “a quick drink.”
Sipping my Shirley Temple and listening to all the men who, likewise, had stopped in to greet Cookie during their Tday errands, I kept one eye on the green Belfast Water clock on the back wall. I knew the clock was set to Bar Time, 15 minutes fast so that Cookie had time to kick everybody out at closing. I also knew that Stella closed at 1 p.m.. It was 12:15.
“Daddy, don’t forget, we need to go get the cake,” I said, pointing to the clock.
“Don’t worry beast, we’ll go in a minute,” dad said smiling, then ordered another round. After another 30 minutes or so, he announced to Cookie and the bar that he was getting ready to leave. Then we began the process of saying goodbye. Cookie came out from behind the bar and gave me and my sister a silver dollar and a hug.
In the car, I wondered if we would make it in time to pick up the cake, or if would we have to come up with what dad called “Plan B,” like last year. Luckily, the baker was just turning the door sign to CLOSED as we pulled up in front. Dad knocked on the glass and pointed to us standing on the sidewalk behind him and talked them into opening up and giving us our cake.
The adults were talk-shouting stories all at the same time, milling in the kitchen while dad added scalded milk to the heaps of butter and stirred the mashed potatoes by hand. Mom had laid out the dining room with candlesticks, a striped French tablecloth, and her Gump’s wedding china and George Jenson silver.
I was at the “kids’ table,” which was a card table covered with a tablecloth that perched at the edge of the dining room near the bottom of the stairs to the second floor. I played tag and hide-and-seek with my cousins and the children of grown-ups I didn’t know. When it came time to sit down, mom gave us something to do so the grown-ups could get on with their important chatting and drinking uninterrupted: Apple Turkeys.
I don’t know if mom invented them or was given the tip from another parent at Presidio Hill School, our progressive elementary school where she would later become the director. In the middle of the table she set a pile of apples, little boxes of Sun-Maid raisins, and a bag of mini marshmallows. She asked me to watch the younger kids so they didn’t try to eat the toothpicks.
Thirty-something Thanksgivings later, my mom continued her tradition to host family, friends, local politicians, artists, and strays, long after my parents divorced. Sometimes even my dad came. I resurrected this craft with my own three kids and their friends, who were equally taken with trying to balance the apple turkey’s legs and building elaborate turkey tails with toothpicks and then eating them. I highly recommend for fidgety kids and grownups. Recipe below.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Gobble! Gobble!
Apple Turkeys
INGREDIENTS
Apples (1 for each turkey)
1 box raisins
1 bag mini-marshmallows
Toothpicks
(Optional: yellow raisins, dried cranberries, or other dried fruits)
INSTRUCTIONS
Take 4 toothpicks and make legs for your turkey. (Children under 4 may need help to do this.)
Use toothpicks to create a “tail” on the backside of the turkey by inserting them at all the same depth in a fan pattern. Leave enough room between picks to decorate each pick with a mix of dried fruit and mini-marshmallows.
Break a toothpick in half and decorate with raisins for eyes.
Note: Small children should be supervised. They may not have the motor skills or hand strength to insert the toothpicks, and well, kids and toothpicks.
Such a vivid 1970s SF dad story! Thank you for this lovely bit of time travel. :)