288 animal, vegetable, miraclecourses culminating in a dessert of homemade yogurt, gingered fi gs, and
local honey. We managed to stretch dinner into a fi ve- hour- long social
engagement in the Mediterranean fashion. It took ten years for Steven
and me to work ourselves up to a vacation in Italy, but from there we were
quick studies on how to have dinner.
For most people everywhere, surely, food anchors holiday tradi-
tions. I probably spent some years denying the good in that, mostly
subconsciously—devoutly refusing the Thanksgiving pie, accepting the
stigma my culture has attached to celebrating food, especially for women
my age. Because of the inscriptions written on our bodies by the children
we’ve borne, the slowing of metabolisms and inevitable shape- shifting, we
are supposed to pretend if we are strong- willed that food is not all that
important. Eat now and pay later, we’re warned. Stand on the scale, roll
your eyes, and on New Year’s Day resolve to become a moral person again.
But most of America’s excess pounds were not gained on national holi-
days. After a certain age we can’t make a habit of pie, certainly, but it’s a
soul-killing dogma that says we have to snub it even on Thanksgiving.
Good people eat. So do bad people, skinny people, fat people, tall and
short ones. Heaven help us, we will never master photosynthesis. Plan-
ning complex, beautiful meals and investing one’s heart and time in their
preparation is the opposite of self- indulgence. Kitchen- based family gath-
erings are process- oriented, cooperative, and in the best of worlds, nour-
ishing and soulful. A lot of calories get used up before anyone sits down to
consume. But more importantly, a lot of talk happens first, news ex-
changed, secrets revealed across generations, paths cleared with a touch
on the arm. I have given and received some of my life’s most important
hugs with those big oven- mitt potholders on both hands.
Holiday gatherings provide a category of cheer I especially need in
winter after the depressing Daylight Robbery incident. Fortunately, the
first one follows right on the heels of the clock fall- back, at the beginning
of November: Dia de los Muertos. I learned to celebrate the Mexican
Day of the Dead during many years of living among Mexican- American
friends, and brought it with me to a surprisingly receptive community in
southwestern Virginia. It seemed too important to leave behind.
The celebration has its roots in Aztec culture, whose Micteca- ci-