Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP.
As last year, my Thanksgiving-themed snippets come from Chapter 19, “Happy Thanksgiving,” of the book formerly known as The Very First (which is set during 1938). The new and improved title will finally be revealed upon its release next year!
I decided to skip the scene of the turkey being butchered and go right to Thanksgiving, when five generations of Cinnimin Filliard’s family gather together with the five Smalls to enjoy their immense feast. The women in Cinni’s direct maternal line are usually very long-lived. Cinni herself will live to 120.
Thursday at 4:30, Cinni sat down to a Thanksgiving feast with her extended family and the Smalls. Both sides of the table were piled high with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, cornbread, gravy, mashed potatoes, candied yams, green beans, candied carrots, applesauce, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and bread rolls. Additional foods on the Smalls’ side were chopped liver and some kind of dish made from the other turkey innards. To avoid cross-contamination, the Smalls had several layers of placemats under their tableware, and several folded-up tablecloths underneath their pots, pans, and platters.
Almost everything looked identical, since Mrs. Small had worked from Mrs. Filliard’s recipes. The only differences were that the Smalls’ gravy was made with extra flour, and without cream, butter, or milk, and that their candied yams had a rainbow of colors from the unusual flavors of marshmallows.
Tatjana Modjeska, Cinni’s 98-year-old great-great-grandmother, was petting a fluffy Persian cat in her lap. Sparky was a bit wary of animal fur getting into the food, but anyone who’d lived to almost a hundred was entitled to bring her pet to dinner. Cinni’s great-great-great-grandmother, Helga Wisowska, had passed away four years ago, so Tatjana must miss her mother at the holidays.