No Turkey on the Beach This Year

Yesterday the first wave of my Thanksgiving holidays began with the arrival of my cousin Sandy from California. She and her sister Alice live in Thousand Oaks and San Clemente, respectively. Each sister has three kids, two scattered to the winds and one married, fabulously successful, and living right in the same town. These two women are grandmas from heaven. Alice spoils her eight-year-old triplets rotten; Sandy recently treated her grandkids to a cruise and a trip to China. Ryan's a 6'2" teen who still looks forward to frequent sleepovers at Sandy's pad so he can play poker with her.

This carefree branch of the Adamcheck clan usually celebrates Thanksgiving on the beach at Shannon's waterfront home. The Thousand Oaks bunch descend on San Clemente, staying over for the weekend. They don't bother to cook--just have the whole turkey bit catered so there's more time for volleyball.

At Christmas, the wave is reversed. Alice and her bunch migrate up to Thousand Oaks. A young friend of Sandy's, a hotshot chef who just happened to have trained with Wolfgang Puck before opening his own restaurant, cooks the whole gang a holiday meal every year out of gratitude for the moral support Sandy's given him over the years.

Except this year, Shannon and his wife decided to go on a cruise for Thanksgiving. So Laurie and her husband thought they'd visit his family in Puerto Rico for a change. Sandy and Alice aren't the type to sit home and pout. Or sit home and cook. We offered; they accepted.

Meanwhile, in Wickenburg, Arizona, old traditions were similarly dying. My sister, Leslie, had recently tried a vegan diet for her diabetes and had startling success with it. Her husband, on a similar diet, had seen his lifelong allergy symptoms disappear. That was the good news. The bad news was that there would be no Butterballs on Agua Drive this year.

I saw my opportunity, and jumped at it--invited the two of them to join the fun. I've been cooking turkeyless Thanksgiving feasts for years, so maybe that was part of the draw. Plus the chance for a family reunion, of course. They accepted, and now...

...it's happening. Let the vegetarian games begin.