“Give me lamb any day!”

I try not to use this blog as a bully pulpit from which I vent about all that is wrong or frustrating in the world. Well, wait—I guess I do that sometimes. What I mean to say is, I try not to use the blog as an emotional launch pad, always telling you when I miss something or someone. Oh, wait—I guess color me guilty occasionally about that too. But I hope you don’t think I whine too much. That part I hope is true.

I will indulge in a little bit of whining, or I should say, pining, today.

Last Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I missed America a lot. I know it is not my first time to be away from the emotional and gastronomic comforts of Cincinnati on Thanksgiving, but I missed home this week. It felt very acute on Thursday.

Last year, my first year at KA, I spent Thanksgiving in Budapest, Hungary with my divine Denison-era friend Sharon, and my new KA friend, the exquisite Elizabeth. (See last year’s blog entry, “Enjoying The Bridges In Our Lives” if you want a repeat of that episode). This year Elizabeth is in medical school in Chicago, so maybe my pining for her, coupled with a yearning for the American-ness and presence of Thanksgiving, and an ever-present sigh wishing Sharon lived closer created a great big wistful hankering on Thanksgiving Day.

The school didn’t do anything to help our Arab brethren understand what an American Thanksgiving is. There was no explanation of it, and obviously no parades or pageants. But the Dining Hall did prepare a pretty good rendition of a Thanksgiving meal. There was an excellent squash soup (where do they get squash? As ubiquitous as it is in the USA, I can’t find it here) and they had roasted some turkeys.

But it just wasn’t quite right from the get-go. You just wandered in to dinner, like always, since our sit-down meals together are only at lunchtime. So people kinda came and went. There was not an official “start” to the meal. And then when I was in line, I heard complaining from a contingent of Saudi boys. They didn’t like the turkey. They couldn’t believe we had to have this. “Who cares about turkey? I think it tastes strange,” one boy opined, and then another said, “Give me lamb any day!”

Okay—it is time to do more than pine. It is time to whine! I just smiled at them, but in my head I was replying: Listen, I eat your food all the time, and while I like it, there isn’t a lot of variety, you hear? And this is what we eat in AMERICA on this day, and we like it—in fact some of us crave it, you got it? I’m sure in my head I added a “buster” for good measure and explosive punctuation too.

So I take my plate of turkey and sweet potatoes and stuffing (did someone actually suggest to put pickles in the stuffing?? I know stuffing is almost by law supposed to be eccentric, but must it have pickles? And must it be served in little rondelets? Harumph!) and sit down, pulling in closer that cloak of feeling-sorry-for-oneself.

It didn’t send me off the deep end—it just made me miss the gathering at one time, the time-honored traditions, and the comforts and conveniences of American meals.

My colleagues Wendy and Tiffany had sensed that we may need another stab at creating a more-typical Thanksgiving meal, so last week they announced that there would be a potluck for any dorm faculty on Friday evening. They were going to get some turkeys (by the way, very expensive here—about $12 a pound for turkey!!!) and roast them, and they wanted to organize a pot luck so that the essentials were covered, and we could gather in fine American form at a certain time and enjoy the repast.

I decided on two side dishes: one traditional and one a little avante-garde-y. I found corn on the cob at the grocery store (about twice as expensive as buying it in frugal Cincinnati) and while Squanto was not here to help show me how to cook it, there was a feeling of reaching back to the first Thanksgiving meal as I boiled the corn. I decided on a carrot dish with an Indian (the other kind!) glaze of oranges, cumin and cinnamon.

We gathered at Wendy’s house about 6:00 and I walked in—and there it was—that wave of stimuli that excite the olfactory cells—the smell of roasting turkey and all those glorious trimmings. We were in a home—and it just smells better in a home than in a dining hall, and we were gathered around a table cum banquet plank. Someone had made mashed potatoes, and someone had made sweet potato casserole, and someone had made a stuffing our of your dreams (or at least mine) with that traditional sage smell that you think your grandmother had patented.

I can barely keep from grabbing little bits of food (Rehema actually sent me to stand in the corner since little pieces of steaming turkey kept leaping off the platter as Sean carved it and they leapt into my mouth) and I feel like a 10 year old at my grandmother’s house just waiting to dig in.

Just at the moment when I was about to grab a spoon, Wendy asked that we all gather round and hold hands. Oh, yes, of course—the part where we express thanksgiving! I almost forgot that part of the holiday in my rush to get at these food-postcards of yore! There are about 20 of us, and we gather around the heaving table, and Lucy, a new colleague, reads us a piece she has written about her last Thanksgiving in Chile, and her gratitude at being with all of us at KA. She asks us to go around the circle and express some thanks publicly.

It was a memorable moment as each of us shared something—we hadn’t been prepped for this assignment—and it held us in reverence and awe. Some mentioned family, some mentioned this community as a family, and I mentioned my thanksgiving for the capacity to wonder. And even as we finished the circle, we held hands a few seconds longer, simply drinking in the beauty and camaraderie of this moment. I think many of us had missed home a bit more than usual in the last day, and this bonding, both the physical, and the bringing-of-food, had calmed us and comforted us.

Over the next several hours we relaxed, stuffed ourselves, laughed, and let go of some of the aches. I told Wendy that her gravy was spectacular, and that her blueberry crumble dessert tasted like, well, like America.

The following day I was talking with my great friend Fatina, a Jordanian who has lived much of her adult life in Saudi Arabia. I was telling her how great Tiffany’s stuffing was. I told her that the sage in her stuffing was a sensory memory for me—the smell and taste that embodies the holiday season of November and December.

Just like any good historian (which she is!) Fatina explained to me the Arab folklore about sage. While sage in English comes from the Latin word for “to save,” or “to heal,” I learned that in Arabic it has Mary’s name in the word. The Virgin Mary, I inquire?? Fatina explained that Arabs believe that during childbirth Mary chewed on sage, to ease the physical pain. Moreover, the legend goes that Mary chewed sage as she and Joseph fled Herod to Egypt, and that to Mary, no other plant would give such shelter from the storms of life. Fatina, ever the font of wisdom, said that the legend continues that Mary said to the sage: “From now until eternity, you will be the favorite flower of mankind. I give you the power to heal man and save him from death and troubles as you have for me.”

How interesting that in the western world, where the majority are Christians, we don’t know this story about the herb sage. Maybe that is why the Puritans craved the herb; maybe the legendary powers of shelter and healing were taken into consideration as Puritans prepared their meals, pined for home, and struggled to survive and thrive in a New World.

Thus, to paraphrase that Saudi lad: give me sage any day.