Ed. — From the Sunday, Nov. 19, print edition.
VIRGINIA BEACH — When I was a young, aspiring sports writer living in Virginia Beach, I always retreated to my parent’s home in Norfolk’s Chesterfield Heights the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. In the Mason household, it is the biggest cooking holiday of the year. We were more than thankful for the year’s blessings, but the holiday also was cooking school.
Momma – Laura – worked with my sous-chef sisters Martha, Annie and, later, baby sister Darlene to prepare side dishes to Big Glen’s – Daddy to us – Smithfield ham and roast turkey main course. They washed, seasoned and cooked collard greens and string beans and cubed and boiled white and sweet potatoes.
I woke up smelling the cinnamon for Momma’s marshmallow sweets and her sweet potato pies. The sweets is a casserole of roasted sweet potatoes or yams, raisins, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg topped with toasted marshmallows.
James Hemings, the first French-trained chef in America, introduced the dish to America’s table. He might be proud of my mother’s macaroni and cheese. Her interpretation used cubed Wisconsin sharp cheddar cheese and a local market’s mild cheddar wrapped in cheesecloth.
It was sublime.
When done, they prepared potato and Waldorf salads, cranberry sauce and desserts of apple pie, pineapple and chocolate cakes. Too many chefs spoil the sauce, so they had to vacate for cook extraordinaire Big Glen to take center stage. This was where I, formerly known as Little Glen, began learning how to dress, prepare and baste a turkey.
I can still smell the aroma of my dad’s near-ritualistic preparation of the holiday bird while I learned at his side.
Then off I went to play in the sandlot turkey bowl on the field off the Elizabeth River three blocks away.
My family’s epic Thanksgiving dinner was the post-game trophy.
It was a blessed table straight out of a Norman Rockwell or Leroy Campbell painting. In Rockwell’s version, the turkey seems to be the star. In Campbell’s work, a meal is prayed over.
There are fond memories of when I came of age, including my training in how to “properly slice, not cut,” turkey and ham.
After Daddy put the meat in the oven, my brother Reginald and the grandkids would gather around the TV – after the football games – to watch a Peanuts special featuring Vince Guaraldi’s jazzy theme music, including “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” still one of the cool, contemporary holiday standards to me.
The Mason family Thanksgiving meal began my love of learning everything culinary, from cooking to serving. The table starts with an opener of shrimp cocktail. Proteins are at each end of the table. Sides are center-table. Collard greens, cranberry sauce, mac and cheese, turkey, stuffing, giblet gravy, brown sugar glazed Smithfield ham with pineapple, marshmallow sweets, apple and sweet potato pies, pineapple and chocolate cakes.
My early lessons in cooking came from a weekend caterer (Daddy) and a professional cook (Martha, my sister). I’ve tried to elevate our family meal for the local table. So here’s the table I’d prepare for a James Hemings and James Beard Foundations Thanksgiving-inspired dinner. The menu is based on our coastal horn aplenty.
The first course is appetizers, a trilogy from the sea and bay – mini-crab cakes, grilled shrimp scampi skewers, Lynnhaven Oyster with chow-chow mignonette. Second, Waldorf salad with wine sap apples for sweetness and grannie Smiths for tartness and balance, then celery and mayonnaise. This year, walnut and pecan halves are sweet, meaty and harvest-heavy.
The third and main course is pork and poultry — maybe oven-roasted fresh turkey with boudin sausage stuffing and giblet turmeric gravy, roasted corn and red pepper pudding, cabbage collard greens (cooked in smoked turkey leg pot liquor, dressed with pickle cubes and red pepper flakes), sautéed mushrooms and, finally, macaroni with smoked gouda and Wisconsin cheddar cheese and black apple wood bacon bits.
Finish it off – buttercream French apple pie, grated sweet potato pudding with toasted marshmallows, and Uncle Nearest celebration pound cake.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Whatever you make and however you make it, I hope you share this meal with loved ones.
The author is a writer and documentary filmmaker who grew up in Norfolk and lived in Virginia Beach for much of his life. He ran a production company, worked in college athletics and was curator at an art gallery in Virginia Beach for years.
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