Eggplant Christmas

The lights, the music, the joyful spirit and then there is the cooking. The holidays are upon us and although I enjoy the wonder of it all, so to speak, I also find them stressful and tiring mainly because I am the one who hosts and cooks the meals. Although I love cooking most days, I’m not actually that big a fan of Thanksgiving or Christmas meals because I am exhausted by the end of the day. I won’t go into details as to why I am the only one cooking other than my siblings are not able to host or cook and my parents who have both now passed away were not able to help due to medical conditions.

At this point I have a routine down of when to start the turkey, vegetables etc… so it is much easier than years past. However, this has come from many, many years of trial and tribulation. I also no longer mess with the formula.

Here is the formula: Thanksgiving; turkey, potatoes (3 types; regular white mashed, sweet potato, white mashed with turnip for my husband) squash, peas, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing and rolls. Dessert is a variety of pies, ice cream, and brownies.

Christmas same as Thanksgiving with one variation that a roast can replace the turkey.

No longer do I try to add new items as my family will not want anything taken off the regular menu, so anything added is just additional work. There were years I watched as green bean casserole sat untouched, I only cooked one type of potatoe and had to answer several times over that there was one type of potato and then there was the year I did the unthinkable.

I was young, in my mid-twenties and still single. I had just started taking over cooking the holiday meals from my mother. It was Christmas and I already had the family over for Thanksgiving to my small one-bedroom apartment which was in an old Victorian mansion that had been converted to several dwellings. My apartment was perfect for one person, but not really meant to host anything. I would rework the furniture so that people could sit comfortably at the same time. The kitchen however was tiny and only one person could be in it at one time.

After cooking Thanksgiving dinner that year I was exhausted, and I thought I would try a change for Christmas and something that might be a little easier.

I had cooked eggplant parmesan one time for a boyfriend and felt inspired. I’m really not sure why other than I thought it would different and possibly easier to cook it as the meal for Christmas dinner. Now of course I did not just spring this change on my family without notice. I told my mother a couple of weeks ahead of time that I was going to make eggplant for Christmas. She answered with a stoic “That sounds wonderful!"

So, I thought, “Wow! This will be my new tradition and hopefully they will all look forward to it every year. It will be so much easier than cooking another turkey and fixings.” However, what I didn’t realize was missing from my conversation with my mom that day was the rest of the sentence where I should have of said “instead of.” Yes, I neglected to say “We are having eggplant parmesan instead of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, squash and gravy.

I started cooking the eggplant early about an hour before they arrived. What I didn’t realize about cooking eggplant is that you can cook it once and have it come out perfect and cook it again the next time the exact way except maybe a tad bit longer, it can turn to sludge. My vision of this beautiful Christmas eggplant disappeared before my eyes when I pulled the baking pan from the oven. It came out so drab and kind of a mess. A mess that was all over that tiny kitchen in the old Victorian mansion apartment as I tried to fix it with more oil or then sauce. As my family was coming in, I was nearly in tears trying to save the meal. My dad asked almost immediately what time the turkey would be ready and what was that “weird smell?”

My mom quickly told him that I added eggplant to the dinner this year with a nod that said be supportive. “Eggplant with turkey?” he looked at me with question.

“We are not having turkey. I cooked eggplant instead of turkey.” I watched as silence came over the room even though Christmas music continued to play. It was like I had ruined the holiday forever.

“Oh, I didn’t realize, you weren’t having turkey at all. ” My mom was in shock herself."A roast?" I shook my head. "I suppose we can try new things." She turned her head so I would not see the disappointment.

However, the understanding of the meal didn’t end with the turkey. More questions came up about when the potatoes would be ready? “Oh, not that either? Squash? I thought that was your favorite?” Then of course it was figured there would not be stuffing or cranberry sauce or gravy.

I sunk into my chair after I brought out the dripping mushy eggplant and sauce. I passed around the ziti and salad. I remembered “Oh I do have rolls!” I ran to the kitchen as I forgot they were warming in stove. There was a least a few smiles as they all passed around the warm bread.

They did all at least try the eggplant, but I do remember emptying most of it into the trash that night. A couple of months later a family friend caught me off guard when she asked why I served tofu at Christmas. The look on her face was as though I betrayed everything about the holidays. I didn’t even bother to explain. I thought it would be something I could just learn from and move on, however, it stayed embedded in my family’s memory. Every year I have had to review the menu in full to make sure each of the items is there. This would be especially true for my dad. He didn’t bring up why he needed to know it was just understood.

Then one Thanksgiving a few years ago as I was setting the table for dinner. He was watching one of his favorite comedies that had a Thanksgiving special. He turned to me and asked, “Didn’t you serve us seaweed one year for Christmas?” He had a grin on his face. I closed my eyes and nodded.

All the years I have been cooking these holiday meals and it is still the one that stands out.

“Why the hell would you do that?” he looked as awestruck as the day he saw mushy eggplant instead of turkey. I wasn’t sure if he really believed it was seaweed, but there was no convincing him.

“Dad, it was thirty years ago!” I had to laugh at this point.

“Well at least you had rolls!” He smiled and continued watching T.V.