“I can cut more.” It was a phrase my Mother would yell above the din of passing dishes and mouthful compliments. Thanksgiving dinner was in full swing. The table was full of family and friends and food. Roast turkey with bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, string beans, spinach and cranberry sauce – both whole and canned (you could see the can marks). How she got everything ready at exactly the appointed time remains a mystery to me fifty years later. Mom was Italian and relished seeing people eat. She took extreme pleasure in badgering the kids to eat prodigious amounts of everything. And if she saw the turkey disappearing, she’d cut more.
There was at least one night that there was not more to cut. I remember it not for what was said but for what was not. I was young, maybe ten. We probably had meat, potatoes and a vegetable because these were the ingredients of a healthy meal. I know this because Mom told me. It was my duty to ready the potatoes every night. They were peeled, cut and in the pot simmering at 5 o’clock when she got home from her job. This particular night, I remember asking for another piece of meat. My mom gave my father a look I’d not seen and just shook her head. The table got quiet and when she got up I thought I saw tears in her eyes. I never asked for more food again, unless I’d heard the “I can cut more” line.
Today, I am a master potato preparer having often cut and maimed myself with a peeler at a very young age. My mashed potatoes include lots of garlic. On Thanksgiving, I still use my Mom’s bread stuffing recipe. I make real cranberry sauce without the can marks and I prefer my string beans Al dente instead of mushy. But there is one thing that everyone waits for. When the dishes are out and the pictures are taken and the prayers are said and when I finally get everything to the table, I’ll look around and think of my Mom and say in a high pitched voice: “I can cut more.”
kongoboken 