Ah yes, the blog post that doesn’t know how to begin. WR says she 100% knows how to begin, if I’ll hand over the keyboard.

I will not.

I have not touched poetry or submitted any in three days. I don’t know what that means, but there it is.

Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving, holds as many food memories as Thanksgiving itself in our family.

My father always made turkey hash. It was an event. 

It’s not what you think it is. It’s more like turkey gravy, but I think his father called it turkey hash when he made it. 

I’m an instinctive, improvisational cook, so trying to explain exactly how I cook a dish isn’t easy, but I want to try. (Mine is an approximation of what my dad made, but I think it’s pretty close.)

Roddie’s Turkey Hash

Serves 4 (He made double batches.) 

Ingredients: 

Maybe a pound of shredded turkey (white or dark meat, your choice)

1 medium yellow onion

1 12 ounce can evaporated milk (You can substitute your choice of milk – I was going to use almond milk but I just couldn’t. Don’t tell my doctor.)

Maybe ⅛ a cup of flour (I tried measuring it for you. That’s a guess.)

Vegetable oil (You can use pretty much any oil, but olive oil is too strong for it.)

Red pepper flakes (a personal preference, but this makes the memory for me because HE used them)

Note: this is probably not how it SHOULD be done, but this is what works for me. 

Roughly chop the onion. This is not a vegetable fashion show. (More on that later. WR had some moves.)

Shred the turkey, if you haven’t. Chop it, too, if the hunks are too big. (WR does not like the sound of hunks in her ears.) 

Heat some oil (Don’t make me tell you how much. Eyeball it. Okay, maybe a tablespoon? Probably more like two? You want the onion to be coated. 

Drop the onion into the warm (not hot) oil.

Push it around like it owns you money.

Add the pepper flakes to let them bloom for a minute or so. (Don’t put your face over this; your lungs won’t thank you.) 

Now add the turkey and once it’s coated in oil, add the flour and SALT. (I think that’s technically the wrong way to do it, probably should be flour first, then turkey, but there are two things you should know about my cooking: A. My gravy is never lumpy. B. My meatballs always hold together. Lots of other cooking flaws over here, but those are two constants.) 

Stir the flour until it is coated with the oily flour. (This post doesn’t want me to say “roux,” does it?)

Let it warm for a minute or so, then add the room temperature evaporated milk knowing that A. If it doesn’t thicken, you’re not out of flour, right? Just add a bit more. (It will thicken.) B. If it’s too thick, add a bit of water until it’s the desired consistency. 

Add more salt. Listen, I am careful with the salt, always, but this is a dish that’s difficult to oversalt. You’ll want salt at the table, too. 

You’ve got this. 

When it is, as I said, just the right consistency for you, turn off the heat. 

Oh, wait. I didn’t tell you that this is best served over Brown N Serve rolls. So you should have those baked. (Usually 425 for 6-8 minutes, right?) 

That’s it.

Except now my experience with it this year.

We look forward to turkey hash every year. I mean, it’s a constant. I made it for the kiddos when they were home. Every. Year. 

I enjoy making it. Even when my dad was still with us, even the years when I didn’t cook a turkey myself and he smuggled me a bag of it to take home for the next day (I usually made my own), even when we lived in Tennessee, I made it. 

This year, I woke up and came downstairs. Stanley and I (the virtual PA, remember, Stanley is), are continuing to declutter, since WR and I have to live indoors now until the weather turns. (Though on sunny days, it’s back to the porch perch.) 

Apparently I had a purse sorting emergency, because I didn’t even start cooking for the first two hours I was awake. 

When the purse and bag wall (what, you don’t store yours on hooks in the dining room so you can look at them as you walk by?) was calmer, we drank the coffee we did not make. 

Coffee usually comes with breakfast, which I make.

Except: no breakfast. 

“Give me a few more minutes,” I asked. “I’ll make it while you shower,” I told Barry.

Honestly, I didn’t realize I was stalling. 

I cranked the Christmas music and gathered the ingredients. 

WR’s teeth showed as she opened the knife drawer. 

Remember how I said you should use a medium onion? 

Yeah, we didn’t have a medium onion. We had a large. 

My hand went for one of the smaller knives. 

“Pardon me?” WR said, reaching for the biggest, sharpest knife.

“Nope. Nopity nope,” I said. 

She reached for one just as large but that I feel marginally safer with. 

(Cutco has a proprietary sharpening system, so I won’t even try to sharpen this one.)

Except as I (we?) began cutting the skin off the onion, suddenly it felt meditative. It felt okay. I realized I am the one making the turkey hash. No one else is coming to make the hash. I am the keeper of the hash. 

My father will never make hash for me again. But I can share his recipe. 

I began crying. Oh great. I said to salt the food, but that’s not what I meant.

I washed my hands mid chop and sat down to cry. 

Well, sob. 

WR at first looked concerned, then asked if we could finish chopping. We did, and it really felt okay except…I noticed that the knife wasn’t sharp enough. I mean, this is me, out here hacking at stuff for years, and now I’m like, you know, this knife could be sharper. 

What? 

And I cried over that, too. 

Eventually, breakfast came together (kinda brunch, by then). It was served on the good china, the pretty stuff. Humble food, prettily situated. Been watching Stanley Tucci’s food travel shows, and it reminds me that simple food well prepared is never the wrong food. 

The rest of the day was rough. Periodic weeping, an overdose of The Beatles, which I had thought perhaps impossible (the Anthology stuff is out now on Disney+). Some frantic online Black Friday gift shopping, which I never do. 

WR discovered a really good sale on pink Dutch ovens, this time eyeing a smaller version, and forwarded it to Santa, saying that they also make great storage bins. (Really, WR?) 

The holidays are always tough after a loss, I suppose. Well, multiple losses.  

So I haven’t written poetry for a few days. I haven’t submitted it, like I said. 

Stanley and I almost have the dining room tamed. More to come on that front. 

I’ve been thinking of the poem “We Are Seven” by Wordsworth. WR just read it again, and says read it at your own risk. It’s a sad one.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52298/we-are-seven

You can miss people who are still very much alive, too, of course, and the missing doesn’t announce itself, it just sits quietly beside you, like someone you wish would stay.

This is rambly. Maybe I should go make breakfast. 

No knives today.