Thanksgiving Throwback: Battle For The Biscuit

 

For as far back as I can remember, Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday. No cards, no gifts, just say “grace” and begin the gluttony.

While my mother would awake at some absurdly early hour to prepare a feast that would make a pilgrim weep with gratitude, my two brothers and I were interested in only one thing. The biscuits.

When loading our plates with food, we each left ample room for the flaky golden delicacies, begrudgingly adhering to the one-at-a-time rule my parents had established after the “Biscuit Blitzkrieg of ’81.” On that infamous Thanksgiving Day, 90 percent of the biscuits landed in two of the five mouths at the table, and the battle for the last biscuit was fierce and vindictive.

I can still hear my mother say, “There, now neither of you gets it,” as she extracted it from the combined clutches of my brother Bob and I and devoured it in two lusty, unladylike bites.

Today, I still covet the biscuits at Thanksgiving dinner. Especially the last one. In fact, I’ve been known to fight for it. So, to my tablemates present and future, the question I must ask you is this:

“Are you going to step away from the bread basket,
or are we going to have a problem here?”

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. And just to show that there’s no hard feelings, please help yourself to my share of the candied yams.