pickled

I was far too pregnant to cook a 20 pound turkey. I gave the job to my younger brother Jason, fresh off the plane from Africa. Two years in the Peace Corps, Jason’s the only one who didn’t give a told-you-so when I bailed. So I’m stubborn and thought I could peel a hundred potatoes at 8½ months pregnant. Forget it.

Everyone was coming to my house as planned, and my only job was to lie on the couch with my legs propped up and to do what I pleased. This, for me, was to eat pickled eggs. Old pickled pregnant lady, I was perfectly happy with a big jar of purple eggs swimming in purple juice eating them one by one. Eat them slower, get more of them down.

Jason and his girlfriend Martha clinked and clanked around in the kitchen while I watched a giant 35 foot tall Barbie falloon float down Madison Avenue in the TV room, my legs propped on several pillows. Jason appeared in the doorway with a soup pot.

“They just said there are 3.4 million flecks of glitter on Barbie’s purse,” I said. “Get a load of that.” I fished in my big glass jar for another.

“Can you mash these?” he put the pot on the coffee table. I scooted myself upright on the couch.

“Three point four million,” I said. “That’ a truckload of glitter, my friend.” I put the pot next to me on the couch. “What? Beans?”

“Lentils,” he said. I looked at him, And? “I need you to mash them for me.” My husband, Rick, was walked through the room to get the vacuum cleaner off the back porch.

“Instead of a traditional Thanksgiving with all of us sitting around romanticizing the genocide of Native Americans by European invaders,” Jason said, “this year we’re going to eat a traditional African meal I learned to cook in Kebri Dehar.” Rick stopped in his tracks.

“Soooo no turkey, potatoes, pie, gravy—” Rick said.

“Nope,” Jason said.

“Creamed corn?”

“No.”

“Sweet potato marshmallow goo?”

“Nooo!” Martha sang from the kitchen?

“You can still watch football,” Jason said.

“Alrighty.” I said, “Where’s the pestle?” And I mashed.

By the time Dad, and Grandma arrived, Jason was spooning the top three inches off each pot of lentils so Martha could take the pots into the back yard, still smoking, to scrape the black layer of burned crust off the bottom. Our father sat in the living room telling his half-deaf mother that women are incapable of getting a perfect math score on the GMAT because they’re too emotional.

I raced my granny, 95 now, to the table, which Rick had decked out with paper cutouts of turkeys and cornucopias because he a very cute husband. Dad moved on to his next favorite task to insulting womankind (both of which he’s mastered): drinking wine. Jason served each of us a plate of spongy bread.

Grandma said to me, “Laney, I think Jason forgot to set the table.”

“Gram,” Jason said, "the Injera is your silver wear.” He spooned bean paste on her flat bread. You use your fingers to scoop up the food instead of a fork.”

“What the hell, Jason?” Grandma said. Bubbles broke through the soupy beans like gas through molten lava on Mars. Everyone looked at my brother. Yeah, Jason.

“Well, this is Misir Alicha on Injera, and this,” he stirred a pot of stew that looked like stringy cabbage in opaque bullion, “is Quanta FirFir. Dried beef stew in BerBere sauce.”

“Where’s the real food?” Gram said.

“Grandma—this is a traditional Ethiopian dish. I learned to cook it in the Peace Corps. I was given the honor of cooking this year’s family Thanksgiving’s meal and I’ve chosen to celebrate, I mean, I've chosen for us to celebrate, together, cultural diversity rather than the violent oppression of English Colonization.”

Dad poured himself some more white zin to break the awkward silence.

“You eat all this food with your hands,” I said. “See?” and I scooped up a spoonful of the bean mush and sponge bread with my purple-stained fingers and shoved it in my mouth. “Oh, dear God, Jason. I love you, man, but you can’t cook. Little Bunny Fu-Fu or anything.” Impossible to tease my brother without getting a smile out of him.

“It’s FurFur, Lane.”

There was a loud crash from the kitchen. After several moments of pause for a mental Holy Shit, Rick ran into the kitchen. I hobbled behind him. The floor was covered with purple juice.

“Oh my God, my pickled eggs!” I said.

“Oh my God, she made a pizza!” Rick stood behind me. Martha held a pepperoni pizza with a fish-shaped oven mitt.

“I’m so sorry,” Martha said. “I hit the jar with my elbow.” Rick lunged for the pizza like it was a mirage in a desert. Martha handed him the pizza slicer before he shoved the thing in his mouth whole.

“Jason, there are some rags in the laundry room,” Rick said. “You clean up the juice. Honey,” he said to me. I was trying my damndest to pick an egg up off the floor. My God! The eggs! Purple eggs rolled everywhere, under the kitchen table, under the cabinets, down the stairs to the back porch. “Go back to the dining room, Okay? and keep your grandmother busy for a few minutes.” Every time I bent to and reach for it I nudged it with my foot and the egg slid away.

“Slippery bastards.”

“Baby?”

“Okay, okay,” I said. I walked back to the dining room. My socks, dyed purple and soaked with juice, slopped on the linoleum.