Grandma's Annual Thanksgiving Feast in the Park

This Thanksgiving, many traditions were revived after being abruptly halted last year. One of those was Grandma’s Thanksgiving feast for the denizen of Balboa Park. Now that Richard, aka Grandma since he is one of the older members of the community and has a tendency to be a compassionate caregiver, lives indoors, he has has raised the bar. This year, the tenth annual feast, the cooking and prep went on for five days. His refrigerator was a tetris puzzle of turkeys, ham, string bean casseroles, sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, stuffing, gravy, regular mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. He borrowed an additional refrigerator because his own was too small.

But Grandma was tired this year. She enlisted the help of a willing chef, Papa “Hen” Henry Cabrera who gladly did all the cooking in trade for being allowed to sleep on the couch for a week while the buying of food and cooking was being managed. Both men pooled their monthly food stamps in order to buy everything. They looked for bargains, of course, but didn’t skimp on the home cooking.

Henry peeled and cooked 30 pounds of potatoes to make the mashed potatoes. When he went to the store for the third turkey, he was shocked to find one that was already thawed among the frozen birds, and nearly got into a tug of war over it with a woman who tried to yank it out of his hands.

Another house guest at Grandma’s had made flyers and put them on walls near the 7-11 and liquor stores near the park where most of Grandma’s friends bought their cigarettes and sodas, so the word was out. As soon as Henry arrived with the first carload of food in foil-covered trays, staking claim to two picnic benches, guests began coming out of the bushes, pulling carts and carrying backpacks. Nearby, a woman was stretching and doing yoga in the shade of a pepper tree. One person sat down and tried to blow up a few balloons while listening to Papa Hen’s L.A. disco playlist on a bluetooth speaker. Seeing that the meal was still a while off, he retreated into the trees.

By the time Grandma made a grand appearance carrying the plates, utensils and several pies, a dozen men had gathered and found shady spots on the grass beneath the trees, against the backdrop of luxury condos rimming the park. One man strung a hammock between two trees and hung an umbrella from a tree branch for extra shade. When it was time to begin, the foil was unceremoniously peeled back, and Grandma’s Thanksgiving feast of 2021 was officially on. Plates were filled to overflowing, as people tried to decide what would have to wait till the second round since there wasn’t room for everything on their first plate.

Lance, another currently housed member of the community, who lives across the street from the park, arrived with his own offering of Southern Thanksgiving dishes: turkey, dressing, thick gravy, several versions of greens, and massive homemade cinnamon rolls with a sugar and cream cheese icing. “Those are ‘truck stop’ cinnamon rolls,” he said, proudly sharing that he got the recipe from a Martha Stewart cook book. “I use a bread maker, and let the dough rise, and I use a lot of cinnamon!” He shook his head as people hesitated over his greens. “This is Southern cooking,” he said. “Not everyone gets it.” Lance used to love watching his grandmother cook at her home in North Florida. She kept a glass pitcher in her kitchen that was full of fruit, gradually fermenting. She would continually add a cup of sugar and more fruit. “I really don’t like fruit cake,” Lance said, “but her fruit cake is unbelievable.”

It didn’t take long for the food coma to set in, with everyone passing out in the shade on the grass, thankful for another day.