Las Vegas Thanksgiving Dinner

A Mother's Right to Drive

It seems fitting that the Rosa Parks of the fight to drive in Saudi Arabia was a single mother trying to get home to her 5-year-old son . In America, after all, the car is all but synonymous with parenting. And as Saudi women continue to risk jail for getting behind the wheel , I find myself thinking of all the complaining I have done about carpool arranging, and activity shuttling, and babysitter dropping and grocery hauling. It has me looking at my all too messy, somewhat rattly wagon with new affection — and more than a little anger that all these have become a political act for some women.

For two and a half decades I chauffeured three sons to soccer games. On misty, muddy days their cleats left gritty polka-dots on the back of my seats. In late November my car became a refuge from the brisk gusts of autumn wind. I would leave the heat on and dash to its warm embrace between quarters. After the games, chilled to our bones, our family would huddle in the car, sip hot chocolate I had brought in a thermos, and offer up commentary on the teams’ performance.

There were nights when my car became a diner. Scholarly studies reveal that the happiest families are those who eat dinner together nightly. I wish I could say we sat down to nutritious dinners together every night like the Cleavers, but we didn’t. Wally and “The Beav” didn’t attend religious school two nights a week and tennis on a third. Wally and “The Beav” did stupid stuff like playing outside instead of important stuff like art lessons or karate. Truthfully, I never believed in over-programming my kids, but when you have three kids, and they are each allotted one self-selected activity in addition to religious school and the orthodontist, you wind up driving to nine activities. Nine activities squeezed into a five-day work week means sometimes you have to eat cheesesteaks and fries in the car. My kids love cheesesteaks and fries and love me for allowing them to chow down in the car. Put that in your study!

On seven-hour treks to visit grandparents the car became Las Vegas. We would bet on what time we’d arrive, how often the youngest would have to stop for the bathroom, whether or not the turnpike stop would have peanut M&Ms, how many desserts Grandma made for Thanksgiving dinner. When all bets had been tallied, it was showtime. We listened to tapes of Disney movies and sang along. I recall begging for mercy on one jaunt, when my two oldest boys croaked out the Robin Williams song from Aladdin for three hours nonstop. Prince Aliiiiiiiiiii … Over the years we’ve taken down and passed around approximately four million bottles of beer on the wall.

Las Vegas Thanksgiving Celebration 2010 | Vegas Yum

Usually, we have no family in Las Vegas so we’ve learned how, during holidays, to make our friends, our family.  Which makes for a far richer, more meaningful celebration for everyone.  This year, two members of my family flew into town to spend Thanksgiving with us and our Las Vegas ‘family’.

Thanks to the kindness of our friend, Greg, our turkeys were deep-fried.  Which he has done for us each year.  So we just prepared them the night before….fresh sage leaves under the skin, a rub on the skin and then chipotle mustard smeared all over the skin prior to frying.

Shake with cracked ice and strain into a glass.  Garnish with a slice of pear.

One of our appetizers was the always popular bacon wrapped dates.  To cut the grease, I partially cook the bacon.  Then stuff the pitted dates with a chunk of Parmesan cheese and wrap the bacon around it.  These can be made almost a week in advance and baked at 350 for about 15-20 min.

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