A Turkey To Remember

[jmward14]

Finally--FINALLY!--posted my monthly blog at Beyond the Veil.  In honor of Thanksgiving, I planned to tell the story of my mom's famous Imploding Turkey, but things got a little out of hand and it wound up being a compilation of her greatest culinary disasters--Nagaski Ribs, the exploding spaghetti pot...  If you ever wondered why I'm so obsessed with food, this will tell you why.  Mwhahahahah!
Hugs and evil grins,
Jean Marie
*who promises you'll never look at dead possum the same way again*

Comments

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh! I've got to add the mom with the exploding food to my notes for my far future (as in "I'll get around to writing it in the..." not as in "set in the...") Against the Dying of the Light book!

[jmward14.livejournal.com]

LOL Glad to service your muse. Thanks for checking it out. Hugs and big smiles, Jean Marie

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

I think I said this to you before, but I'd have loved to have met your Mum.

[jmward14.livejournal.com]

She was a pip. And she was always nagging me to write about her family. Somehow, I don't think this is what she had in mind. Hugs and grins, Jean Marie

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a very affectionate piece.

[jmward14.livejournal.com]

Oh, it is. Lots of love there. :D But Mom wanted the world to think her family was perfect--especially her. To me, that would be terribly boring. Nobody wants to read about perfection.
What pleased me about this blog, in spite of the slightly clunky first two paragraphs needed to tie it to BtV, was that I can hear echoes of my father's storytelling cadence. By the time I met him, he was what everybody called a "natural storyteller". I wasn't anything of the sort. Every story was (and most of them still are) the product of sweat, blood and frustration--frustration, because the finished product never measures up to the idea singing in my head.
It wasn't until the last couple years--when circumstances exposed many of my dad's favorite stories as blarney--that I realized his style wasn't any more natural than mine. He'd merely worked at telling stories so long, he'd achieved a sense of artless narrative truth. The n'th degree of art, if you will.
I felt a little betrayed when I learned the truth of those stories. Suddenly, I couldn't take anything I thought I knew about the Irish side of my family for granted. But the revelations were a tremendous gift too. The experience taught me so much about the back end of my craft.
Even if I can't seem to bring myself to bend "objective truth" quite that way. I think my "journalist genes" all came from Mom. Her way of hiding unpleasant or unheroic realities was to deny they existed or simply not talk about them. We don't make stuff up, because we're not good enough. Growing up, I was so bad at it, even white lies inspired me with terror. I KNEW I was going to get caught. Sure kept me honest as a government employee.
So all the incidents related in that blog actually happened. The art, such as it was, consisted of picking out the details I could build on to reach a narrative climax, like the parsley, or setting a pattern (such as dishes with burnt edges and runny middles) that explained subsequent incidents without requiring a lot of exposition.
Ugh. Talked too long there, didn't I. Happy Sunday anyway!
Hugs and smiles,
Jean Marie

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

You didn't talk too long at all; have you seen me when I start ranting about the BBC?
I thought it was a delightful story, expertly told, and as I said, told with great warmth. Thanks for sharing that.

[jmward14.livejournal.com]

Thanks {{{{hutch0}}}}}. Hugs and smiles, Jean Marie

[sandyinstep.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I've been researching the Read sisters, the original professional dancers in my family, and learned a few things that set quite a few family stories on end. Apparently they didn't want the family to think they were "that" sort of showgirl.

I'll tell you more at T-day. Love-Sandy

[jmward14.livejournal.com]

Can't wait! Hugs and smiles, Jean Marie