Most of our Thanksgiving dinner celebrations look like the mob on the left.
Those are my Sicilian relatives and Thanksgiving is the annual reunion.
My nuclear family makes it to dinner with them every couple years, but we know we’re always invited. Indeed, this year half of my family attended and I autographed copies of my book!
During our Navy years, we often lived too far away to stop by–even if we could see all 50+ relatives in one swoop.
Most Thanksgivings we shared the meal with friends off our submarine, from our church, with our neighbors and periodically with the other side of the family.
Flying to Thanksgiving dinner on another island.
But one year, we decided to take our six-member family on the road and caught a plane to Moloka’i where we ate Thanksgiving dinner on the beach.
I baked the turkey and Aunt Arly’s potatoes in my Pearl Harbor kitchen the night before. Hawaiian Airlines allowed you to carry coolers on the plane and so we checked our luggage and two coolers.
One carried warm food from the microwave: sliced turkey, Aunt Arly’s potatoes, rolls and some sort of vegetable; all in plastic containers.
The other cooler held cranberry jello salad, frozen milk (to keep things cool), butter and something for dessert. You’re not allowed to carry ice, so the frozen milk ultimately served two purposes.
Molokai’i airport
The flight from Honolulu took twenty minutes. We picked up our rental car–one of only four parked off the runway–and headed to a beach on the south side of the island. We wanted to eat before the turkey cooled too much.
Turkey on the beach
We didn’t realize the wind never stops blowing on Moloka’i. White caps whipped up on the ocean and the palm trees practically bent over in enthusiasm. We found a sheltered spot and spread out the food on a sheet tossed over a picnic table.
The food tasted as good as always, the balmy weather meant Hawai’ian shirts and sandals, the dramatic views pleased.
Somehow it just wasn’t the same.
The beach didn’t work for swimming and we felt isolated and lovely without all the relatives, or even our neighbors.
We soon packed up the food and headed to a rental condo to go swimming. We ate leftovers for dinner.
And breakfast.
And lunch.
At that time, there was only one grocery store on Moloka’i and it was closed for the holidays.
The mini-mart at our condo complex didn’t sell much to eat beyond bread.
The children got hungry. We couldn’t find a place to eat!
Saved by the rodeo
Everywhere we went, residents asked us if we had come to Moloka’i for the rodeo. We didn’t know anything about it but as dinner time loomed, we thought we’d stop in. Surely they would sell food at the rodeo?
They did. Hawai’ian barbeque. It tasted great. We had plenty of leftovers for the next day.
That Thanksgiving went down in our family lore as the holiday when we nearly starved.
Not really, of course, but it sure felt like it!
Tweetables
Eating turkey at the beach! Click to Tweet
A hungry Thanksgiving? Not! Click to Tweet
A Hawai’ian Thanksgiving. Click to Tweet
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