What We're Writing: Hallie remembers a Thanksgiving...

HALLIE EPHRON: This Thanksgiving, surrounded by the glorious chaos of my children and grandchildren, I found myself remembering the Thanksgivings that I grew up with and my mother who detested domesticity but loved Thanksgiving.

Here's part of an essay I wrote about her final Thanksgiving.

**

Thanksgiving was my mother’s favorite holiday. I remember her last one. The four of us (my sisters and me) and our spouses and my dad are there with her in the living room of my parents’ New York apartment.

My mother is presiding from a sofa that was moved there from their house in Beverly Hills to this apartment on the upper East Side of Manhattan. Once upholstered in a shiny red-and-green floral print that felt cool against my face, it’s there that my mother read the Oz books to me after dinner when I was growing up. Now in their bright, modern condominium, the sofa had been re-covered in white linen.

I can still see my mother sitting there, nearly lost in a billowing gold brocade caftan. Her hair is, as always, short and brushed briskly away from her face. She smells, as always, of Eve Arden face cream, cigarettes, and Scotch whiskey.

Her cheeks are flushed and full, and she seems at first to be in the pink of health. But closer up, her face is puffy, the skin reddened with broken blood vessels. Her hair is thin. Her grey eyes rheumy. She seems at once paunchy and emaciated. A cigarette trembles between her fingers. She’s too weak to even stand and will retire to her bed before we sit down to eat.

A writer, first and foremost, her hands have always been her pride, the fingers short, stubby, and efficient, the nails cut short so as not to interfere with her typing. Thanksgiving was one of her annual days of domesticity, even if it was hired help who set the table, cooked and served the meal, and cleaned up after.

Even at that last Thanksgiving there was an elaborate centerpiece for the table – a riot of pineapple, eggplant, persimmon, nuts, and grapes. Two turkeys, three pies, three kinds of stuffing.

Not only did she have to be a successful lady writer but she had to run a perfect home and raise perfect children. And Thanksgiving, even her last one, was the time for that perfection to shine.

**

Do you have memories of a lost loved one, no longer with us, but whose memory pops up during the holidays?

Caramel Sauce, Word Search Answers, and Whatnot

 JENN McKINLAY: I was supposed to post Friday's word search answer yesterday, but shockingly (ha!) I forgot. So it is at the bottom of today's post in which I'm sharing my recipe for salted caramel sauce because it bumped my apple pie and my pumpkin pie up "two notches" according to my father-in-law and I absolutely agree.

Salted Caramel Sauce:

Ingredients: 

1 cup sugar

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup heavy cream, room temperature

1 teaspoon salt

Heat sugar in a steel saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Sugar will clump but melt into an amber colored liquid. Once the sugar is all melted, add in the butter. Be careful because the sauce will bubble rapidly and it will burn you! If it starts to separate, remove from heat and whisk until smooth. Slowly add in the heavy cream while stirring constantly. After all the cream has been added, stop stirring and let it bubble for 1 minute. It will rise while it heats. Remove from heat and stir in the salt. It will be watery but will thicken while it cools. Cover tightly and it will keep for one month in the refrigerator. Mine has never lasted more than a few days :) 

True confession time: I used to be a hot fudge and marshmallow sauce gal, but I have crossed the enemy line and am all about caramel sauce now. If you're saucing up your dessert, what's your go to? Chocolate? Raspberry? Caramel? Other? 

And now, your word search answers...