Thanksgiving and . . . Lutefisk?

A friend asked me to share my favorite Thanksgiving memory, so this journey into the past brought memories of a Thanksgiving feast from early in the 1970's.

A motley crew of some 18 hungry souls had gathered as my sister and I prepared our fabulous dinner. The first course -- lutefisk.

I should explain that my sister's sense of time was cosmic. She was connected to the larger universe. Tiny matters of turning the oven on at the right time escaped her. But finally, everyone gathered around the long table. All looked festive. The appetizers long gone. In fact the guests looked rather long in tooth as my sister and I carried two large platters of steaming lutefisk to table.

Would you believe those two platters made it all the way around the table without one person taking a single serving?

Perhaps it was the sight. My husband calls lutefisk a kind of fish jello with white gravy. Or it could have been the smell. The fish, soaked in lye to preserve it, comes from specialty stores, looking something like a board. The fish must be reconstituted by soaking in water overnight (or a little longer, to make sure the lye is totally gone). But the poor, weakened fish must next be boiled in cheesecloth; otherwise, it would boil away entirely.

I have no pictures of that long ago feast,
but this picture by MTCarlson (Flickr)
will give you an idea . . . 

Then, slathered with white, cream gravy, lutefisk is a dish for Swedes. And well loved. My sister and I sat at the head of the table and pigged out.

Later, we had turkey. Everyone praised our Thanksgiving feast. But for my sister and me, it was always about the lutefisk.

Now in the spirit of Thanksgiving, and following Annette's suggestion, do YOU have a Thanksgiving memory to share?

Remembering a summer afternoon

Just for fun, here are some photos from this late summer visit to the Corbin Art Center here in Spokane for a small exhibit, "Art in Bloom," that paired quilts with flower arrangements. 

In 1912, formal gardens were added to this historic home, originally built in 1898. First a friend and I wandered through the exhibit of quilts, admiring the quilts and the matching arrangements of flowers donated by local florists.

Detail, "Under the Tuscan Sun"
Quilter: Florence Coffey
Florist: Wildflowers

Detail, "Summer Hydrangea"
Quilter: Terry Engleman
Florist: Poetry in Bloom

Detail, "Bouquets for a New Day"
Quilter: Terry Engleman
Florist: Vicki's Garden Center

Then we walked in the restored formal Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens, just outside the door of this old mansion, up the rocky terraces, the flowers seeming to have that last gasp of color before winter descends, late summer sun, an afternoon with a friend who loves quilting and gardens.

Snowcrop (Sedum)

Amaranthus Tricolor ("Jacob's Coat")

Reflecting pool

View of Spokane

Day 26: Dreaming moon

Not so long ago, a blood moon
rose in this autumn sky,
portent of the end of days
and happenstance,
a statistical anomaly for those
who number nights 
and measure the cosmos
with light years.
Instead the pull of gravity,
brings us to this moment,
woman's moon,
a dreaming moon
rising and falling in the night,
a perfect round of days,
nine months if we are counting,
and a child is born. 
All we know,
all we aspire to,
begins anew.











Today's prompt from Octpowrimo is to write of sleep or dreaming. Immediately, I thought of a dreaming moon and a grandchild-to-be who should arrive in the  next week or so. The photo, "Harvest Moon," comes from Wikipedia. 

Read what others have written in response to this prompt by going HERE.

Day 24: On the value of letters

I cried when I landed here,

at York Factory,

This is my home; this my husband.

I shall write letters, and all will be well.

We walked up the hill from the boat,

leaving behind that wretched small room

smelling of sickness and the sea,

careful to stay on the wooden path, 

clouds of mosquitoes

surround us, the air so cold 

it catches in my chest.

Margaret steps off the boardwalk

to slip ankle-deep in the marshy mud,

her white stockings stained.

The piano will be uncrated later.

I look out the tiny window

of my new quarters, four rooms,

and know that beyond the palisades

for miles and miles, past the rolling hills

of the marsh, past that row of tall pines

on the horizon, there is nothing.

Letitia Hargrave (1813-1854) is honored today as the first woman to write of her experiences living in Upper Manitoba as the wife of Chief Factor James Hargrave, at York Factory, just off Hudson's Bay, a key post of the Hudson's Bay Company. 

Her letters, available online, are a treasure of detail. Isolated, alone, yet with a finishing school mentality, Letitia wrote to her family in a close hand, cross-written with thin ink that froze in the winter, yet tell us much of life in mid-19th Century frontier Canada.

Read more of Letitia's life on Wikipedia.

Read her letters here at the Library of the University of Toronto.

Day 23: Turn the page

The nouns go first, no matter

how fast we hold on to sentence sense,

like penguins, black and white,

who slither along the ice,

useless wings flapping, until they

fall at last into the cold, cold water.

There, those birds so awkward on land,

fly through deep seas, at home.

And so I do not think

beyond nouns. It is enough

the seasons turn, and the sky

this morning brightened with promise.

Penguins (Gianfranco Goria on Flickr)

Check out what others have written for Octpowrimo, a month long challenge to write a poem a day.

A Poet's Voice

I scan the words,
their pattern on the page
as clear as lines
that mark
the way
home.

What difference would it make,
to hear the poet's voice
to know with any
certainty,
that here,
in this space,
the poet lost her place,
her voice trembled, and I can
no longer trust her truth,
hard won it may be;
she is as human
as me.

I'm remembering 
a certain temple at Delphi.
On the hill above, the men
raced horses to their destinies;
here on a small ledge below,
in the cracks of the earth,
women breathed in mysteries,
danced by Athena's sacred spring,
and spoke in tongues,
poets all.

Athena's Temple at Delphi, Greece (Camp 2004)

Today's prompt from Octpowrimo.com challenges us to record an audio version of our favorite poem written this month. I have no time this  morning (commitments begin early today), but somehow this meandering poem took me back to a mystical day spent at Delphi. Athena's temple was nearly hidden in the ledge below the main temple of Apollo. 

We could walk right up to the holy stone near the cave where the women meditated and foretold their prophesies. Such holy stones, were found throughout Greece, but here at Delphi, this stone is the symbol of the sacred Oracle.

Holy Stone at Delphi (Camp 2004)

Day 21: Waking Poem

Suddenly it is dark

in the morning,

as if the sun needed to stay below

the horizon a little longer,

the earth tilted away

to hide her treasure,

like the basket I found in my dreams,

dust-covered, colors faded,

but the design true, a note inside

scrawled with tiny letters

and a number.

Maybe this once belonged

to someone’s grandmother,

this basket. I shall carry it home

and make it whole.

A basket made by Californian Lucy Telles, 
now in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
(source: Wikipedia)

The first lines of this poem came on waking this morning, a very dark morning before daylight savings time kicks in now that we're two-thirds of the way through October. I think I know what it means: that urge to preserve and protect artifacts from previous generations, perhaps an acknowledgement that I cannot 'see' what is valuable of my own. 

Even if I have not written every single day, this month long commitment to try comes from Octpowrimo.com  -- Go see what others have written HERE.