My Mother's Thanksgiving Stuffing Recipe, A Legacy Of Love

NORTH FORK, NY — Growing up with my mother and grandmother in a two-story house in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, holidays were a big deal. Now that I live on the North Fork in an idyllic hamlet where the Christmas trees are fragrant and tall and the holiday fairs dot the calendars months in advance, I guess some might say I'm living the quintessential, Norman Rockwell-esque experience.

But no matter where you grew up, there's nothing like the holidays of childhood. Even when they're spent in a tiny Brooklyn apartment.

Thanksgiving was always a day my grandmother took seriously, buying the biggest, fattest turkey and working for hours to make her own Norwegian mother's creamed onions, mashed turnips, and mashed potatoes.

And, of course, the stuffing. Never a stuffing fan, really, I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. My mother, however, waited eagerly by the stove, large spoon in hand, waiting to sneak a taste when my grandmother's back was turned.

For years at the dinner table, they weighed the outcome of that year's batch of stuffing. Was there enough sausage? The right amount of celery and onion? And most important for my mother — would there be plenty for leftovers?

As I got older, and my grandmother, more frail, my mother took over the Thanksgiving cooking duties — the proverbial passing of the baton and the baster. And she took nothing more seriously than she did the stuffing.

When I eventually had a baby of my own, I decided I wanted to do Thanksgiving, wanted to host the meal. My mother headed over to my tiny kitchen in that Brooklyn apartment, armed with celery and onion, sausage meat and white bread, butter, sage, thyme — and the recipe to the family stuffing, written quickly on a piece of paper, meant just to guide us.

In that stiflingly warm kitchen, she took the time to teach me, a young woman who'd barely boiled water, how to wait patiently until the celery was soft enough, the sausage, cooked through. She wasn't just passing on a recipe, she was passing on tradition, echoing time-honored moments that have taken place in every kitchen a mother and daughter have ever shared.

It was only a few short months later that my mother, my beautiful, laughing, dancing mother, was diagnosed with colon cancer. The doctor said it was impossible to tell how long she'd have. But the nurse, with a compassionate heart I'll be grateful for, forever, took me aside and said it was bad. Very bad. And that I should spend every single minute with my mother that I possibly could.

She was diagnosed in August and died exactly one year later, when she was just 53 years old.

On one of the last days of her life, my mother and I were in her bedroom, trying to say all the things we could, and saying nothing. We talked about my son Billy, just a baby, and how I was worried his tiny baby's feet would never grow. "Don't worry," she said gently, a smile on her face. "He'll grow."

And then she pointed me to the closet where, even though it was only August, she had a pile of Christmas presents, already wrapped. One of the gifts was a pair of tiny Barney sneakers for my son, too big. But she was right. By the time Christmas finally came, and she'd been gone for four long months, those tiny sneakers, once so big, fit perfectly.

On that same August day, I asked my mother if she was hungry. The cancer has stolen her sparkle, her voice, her appetite altogether. But she looked at me and said she'd been dreaming. Dreaming of our Thanksgiving stuffing.

And so on that unbearably hot day, I headed back to my tiny kitchen where just a few months earlier, she'd taught me how to make our family stuffing. It wasn't Thanksgiving. It wasn't a joyful holiday but instead, the saddest of days — I was cooking through my tears. And I was rushing, desperate to bring my mother something, anything, that she could eat and that would make her smile. That would keep her with me, just a little while longer.

In my rush, I didn't take the time she'd taught me to take. The celery wasn't soft enough. When I got back with the stuffing, my mother took a bite, and it was clear that it was too difficult for her to eat. The pain she was in, it was just too great. But she looked at me, so much love in her eyes, and told me it was the best Thanksgiving stuffing she'd ever tasted.

That was the last meal I ever made for my mother. She died two days later.

Years have passed and my own son grew up eating the Thanksgiving stuffing. Every year, I follow the steps, buy the sausage meat, stir the onions and celery and butter and bake it until it's perfection.

And even though I was never a fan of stuffing, I love it now, because every time I smell the sage and thyme, every time I taste the sausage and butter and celery, I think of years of love, of my mom, sneaking her spoon into the turkey, delighting in the flavor.

Family recipes are like that, so much more than food. Passed down through generations, they're the ties that bind us, that keep us close forever to the ones we love long after they are gone. My son may not remember his grandmother, but he will always remember the taste of her Thanksgiving stuffing.

I framed that scrap of paper with the recipe that she wrote down, and I've kept it always. It's one of my most cherished possessions.

Every time I make her stuffing, I think of my beautiful mother, and hope, in my heart, that she sees I'm following all the steps, her recipe — not just for the stuffing, but for life.

Every time, I hope I've made her proud.