The day before Thanksgiving was dreary at best this year. A spitting mist of rain drizzled down from McConnelsville to Zanesville to Dover and beyond. My cat Rosie was tucked safely into her plush crate, soundly sleeping and purring tenderly on the heated passenger seat. We were going home for the first time in two months. I looked at her fondly through the mesh screen which kept her from clamoring about the car, as swirling steam from pungent coffee escaped the cup that was warming the embrace of my hand. It is not that I had a bad childhood, rather quite the opposite. However, for some reason, cold, dark, damp weather made me feel at home. It was always as though the rain drops, the breath materializing into a disappearing cloud in front of my face, and the gray pitch of autumn weather made me yearn for feelings I associate with home—comfort, serenity, warmth, softness, all manners of love. This day could not have been more perfect for our valiant return to Lake County, Ohio.
We had one stop to make before we arrived and nested into my parents’ home. This year, prompted by Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Rosie and I were detouring from the monotony of a crowded Ohio Interstate to venture through Cuyahoga Valley National Park to Goatfeathers Point Farm in Peninsula, Ohio. As my tires peeled up a wet, tacky asphalt road, I noticed the surrounding landscape—it was more like places I’d been in Massachusetts and Connecticut than like the Ohio I’d just left. The trees were tall and visibly old, creating a canopied forest marked by oaky brown and fading winter yellow. There was a pale glow surrounding the almost black, soaking wet bark of gnarled tree trunks. The road cut through this landscape as though it had been traveled for a hundred years, and that’s probably because it had been. I looked at my directions, up and down, and back at the road hoping I hadn’t missed it. Then, on my right I saw a large, aged but beautifully managed blue house with a reassuring, deep porch and a barn anchoring it to the road. In front of this house was a handmade sign that said “Turkeys,” and gave a phone number. Clearly, I’d found it. I was greeted by rambunctious, friendly dogs stampeding from the newly opened door. I had a wonderful experience, albeit brief, at Goatfeathers Point Farm that day. Cindy and Terry Smith were gracious and overwhelmingly hospitable, knowledgeable about their animals, and from them I felt a sense of kindness that is often lacking in our social interactions today. The farm was absolutely beautiful. The greens and browns were deep, the white and black chickens and goats were bold, and the delights of the forest were visibly plentiful.
Rosie and I were at Goatfeathers Point Farm picking up a heritage breed turkey. If you haven’t read Barbara Kingsolver’s book, or more specifically if you haven’t made it to the chapter about turkey, then I’ll sum it up for you with an excerpt:
“Of the 400 million turkeys Americans consume each year, more than 99 percent of them are a single breed: the Broad-Breasted White, a quick-fattening monster bred specifically for the industrial-scale setting. These are the big lugs so famously dumb, the can drown buy looking up at the rain…If a Broad-Breasted White should escape slaughter, it likely wouldn’t live to be a year old: they get so heavy, their legs collapse. In mature form they’re incapable of flying, foraging, or mating. That’s right, reproduction. Genes that make the turkeys behave like animals are useless to a creature packed wing-to-wing with thousands of others, and might cause it to get uppity or suicidal, so those genes have been bred out of the pool. Docile lethargy works better, and helps them pack on the pounds. To some extent, this trend holds for all animals bred for confinement. For turkeys, the scheme that gave them an extremely breast-heavy body and ultra-rapid growth has also left them with a combination of deformity and idiocy that renders them unable to have sex. Poor turkeys.” (page 90, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle)
When I read this part of the book, way back in September while I was working a sweaty, dusty booth at the Morgan County Fair, I knew then and there we wouldn’t be eating one of those turkeys again. My family would (by force, of course) be dining on a heritage breed turkey this year. Heritage breed turkeys were developed for all the qualities one might want in an animal meant to be eaten—beauty, flavor, ability to survive, etc. as opposed to how quickly they grow and how much white meat they yield. The turkey I picked up at Goatfeathers Point Farm was living and breathing only days before it was most gratefully and appreciatively sacrificed for my family to consume on Thanksgiving Day. It was free to walk about and forage, it smelled the air, it saw the sky, it was able to dig its feet into the dirt and peck around about the grass. It lived the life God intended it to live, it was free to move, to stretch, to fill its lungs with breath and to run. When I got back into my car, turned the key and got a faint whiff of a wood burning stove, I looked at the farm that surrounded me with hills and valleys and deep, dense woods and knew that the creatures that live on this farm were God’s and that God was pleased with them.
Needless to say at this point, the turkey was stunning in both presentation and taste. It cooked beautifully, and tasted even lovelier. Our fireplace popped and sizzled and filled our house with its woody, smoky aroma, and yet it could not champion the smell coming from our oven—tender turning to crackling skin, dripping fat searing onto the hot pan below, meat swelling with its own juices, and steaming apples and onions inside the bony ribcage of a carefully tended, crafted bird. It was undoubtedly the best poultry I’ve ever eaten, and it was unanimously agreed that we will no longer be consuming Broad Breasted White turkeys at our Thanksgiving meals. Unanimous is in fact the perfect word for our Thanksgiving meal. We were unanimous in each other’s presence. We were all together in flesh and in spirit for the first time in a very long time. We shared family and fellowship without argument or negativity. It was different, and it will always be different, but it wasn’t painful or resentful, rather it was new. The food was reminiscent of our kinship and we bonded closely over the deep-rooted tradition in my Mom’s white bread stuffing and the new found spirit of health and happiness in my carefully constructed lettuce salad, featuring all local ingredients. It was a meal I never expected, giving me warmth and light and I could say nothing more about it other than, Alleluia.
The rolls I made: Queen Honeybea's Seed & Grain Rolls.
Our lettuce salad with Black Seeded Simpson lettuce from Athens, Green, Yellow and Red Tomatoes from Morgan County, Apples from Morgan County, Athens Own Aged Wisconsin Cheddar, baby Radishes from Athens, Arugula and Spinach from Athens, and Whole-Wheat sourdough croutons made from my own homemade bread.
Queen Honeybea's Honey Pumpkin Pie, which is utter pie perfection, I must say. Topped with Snowville Creamery whipped cream, sweetened with Kirtland honey.
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