The year 1888 that marks the last time the first day of Hanukkah coincided with Thanksgiving, an event that won't happen again for 71,000 years, was too good to pass up. Matt and Kitty and the family I gave them in Die a Little Live a Lot had to celebrate with the Gorofsky family introduced in Season 18's This Golden Land. The surrey came to Dodge in Season 2's Sunday Supplement. The recipes I have Kitty and Doc prepare are actual recipes and don't violate kosher rules by mixing dairy products with meat (the turkey).
A Special Thanksgiving
It was late enough in the morning that Nat and Abby had gone off to school and Matt was in his office, but even so, Kitty Dillon was surprised to hear a tentative knocking at the outside door. Someone must have climbed those alley steps leading directly to the upstairs rooms that had become the Dillon family home since she and Matt finally married a year ago on June 3, 1887. Since then they'd adopted brother and sister orphans, Nat and Abby and Adam was born on March 8th, so it really had become a family home. That home had nearly been shattered when Matt was shot with Nat looking on, but Marshal Matt Dillon was made of strong stuff and was now fully recovered despite setbacks along the way. She put baby Adam down in his cradle and answered the door.
"Hello, Mrs. Dillon," the primly dressed woman said as soon as Kitty opened the door. "May I come in?"
"Of course, Mrs. Gorofsky," Kitty replied to the primly dressed woman with the scarf covering her hair. Come right in and have a seat on the divan. Can I get you anything?"
"No thank you. I don't want to put you to any bother. What I came to say won't take very long. My Moshe is at your husband's office as we speak, but what he's talking with him about has nothing to do with the law, but everything to do with sharing in this new land we now call home. What the men are talking about is something I asked of him, but I wanted to tell you as well. He might not see it as fitting, but perhaps you, another woman, will."
"What is it you think I might have to convince Matt of? I've only seen you a few times in Mr. Lathrop's store since you first settled here over three years ago. Yours wasn't the best introduction to Dodge, what with the loss of your youngest son, but stay you have."
"Your bringing up that sad time makes this easier to say. Back then Moshe taught your husband something of our people's law as written in the books we call the Talmud when he refused to, how do you say, bring charges against the men the marshal felt were responsible for Semel's passing. He had patience and respected our ways, which allowed time for the truth to come out. Just as that was a meeting of two very different ways of life, so too is another such meeting coming up. This, thank Hashem, does not have to do with death and loss, but with thanks. We'd like you and your family to join us at our farm to observe the American Holiday of Thanksgiving and the second night of a minor celebration in our tradition. Will you join us two weeks from today on Thursday, November 29?"
"I'd love to accept, but, if we did, Festus and Doc would be alone on Thanksgiving. I just couldn't allow that. However, since you've asked our family to join with yours, please call me Kitty."
"You must call me Zisha then. Don't feel you have to refuse because of those fine gentlemen. Deputy Haggen and Dr. Adams have been of as much help in making our family feel welcome here as your husband and yourself, so of course they are invited as well."
Kitty picked up Adam, bundled the 8-month old up for being outdoors in the November chill and accompanied Zisha Gorofsky down one set of stairs and up the opposite ones to Doc's office. The elderly town physician was pleased to accept the invitation to dinner. Secretly he was glad Kitty wouldn't be cooking for every straggler who came through town on the national holiday in addition to her extended family. Floyd and Lily could take care of the Long Branch dinner this year. Kitty after all that had happened since the last Thanksgiving, including giving birth to Adam at a rather advanced age for a first pregnancy, deserved the chance to do less. The two women and the old man then walked down Front Street the US Marshal's Office.
Moshe Gorofsky was still there talking with Matt, Festus and Lionel Walker, a deputy since August 1886 when he left Denver. Lionel would be taking the westbound train in a week so he could spend the holiday with his family and Albert Goode, the Dillon's ranch foreman would take an eastbound train to Wichita so he could spend time with his family headed by Matt's former assistant, Chester Goode on their farm outside Maize. Festus, always willing to accept a free meal eagerly said yes to the farm couple's invitation. He even volunteered to hunt the wild turkey as his contribution. Kitty would make a slow-cooked smoked turkey New Orleans style, using dried cane sugar stalks, although, if pressed, local wood would do, and provided the orange and lemon, along with the sugar cane leavings, she requested from her cousin arrived in time, and the giblet gravy. Doc agreed to bring hot apple cranberry cider. He could easily prepare it in his office if the cranberries arrived on the Santa Fe. Zisha roasted the other turkey and provided the squash soup, stuffing, sauerkraut, roasted and fried potatoes, a baked carrot and brown sugar dish that she called tsimmes and a dessert made with dried apples and plums.
Matt borrowed Doc's buggy and drove Kitty, Adam and Abby out to the Gorofsky farm southwest of town along the Arkansas River right after breakfast so the she-males, as Festus called women and girls, of his family could help with the food preparation. All the ingredients for the New Orleans dishes and the cider had arrived the day before so the special recipes could be prepared without compromising tradition. He and Nat had already dug the pit so the turkey could slowly cook as it absorbed the burning sugar cane along with the seasonings. The remaining Dodge City contingent arrived in a surrey that first came to the stables where Matt kept his horses when two New York City writers were forced to leave suddenly back in the early spring of '69, although Festus chose to ride his mule Ruth, at the appointed hour of five dressed in their Sunday best. Moshe and his sons Smuel and Gearshon, known as Sam and Gerry, greeted their guests warmly.
It was just sundown when all was ready on the table, but they didn't sit right down to enjoy the meal. Instead, Moshe Gorofsky placed a candelabrum with space for nine coal oil containers the size of short wide candles in one of the front windows. Before anything further happened, Moshe explained that this was in honor of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights commemorating the miracle of the oil for one day lasting for eight after the Greeks were chased from the temple in Jerusalem by the victorious freedom fighters the Maccabees, and that this sundown marked the end of the first day and start of the second night of the holiday. Then Zisha lit the container that sat higher than the other eight and used it to light two more containers while all the Gorofskys recited the prayer that accompanied this particular ritual.
"Baruch atah adonay elohaynu melach ha'olam asher kideshanu bmitzvotav vetzivzhnu lehadlik ner shel hanukah. Baruch atah adonay elohaynu melach ha'olam, she'asah nisim la'voteynu bayamim hahem bazeman hazeh., Amen."
Moshe then translated it as "Blessed art thou oh Lord, our God, king of the universe, who has made us holy with your requirements and commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah light. Blessed art thou oh Lord our God, king of the universe who wrought wonders for our ancestors in former days in this season."
Everyone then sat at the table where a glass of wine was beside each place setting, with just a sip for 11-year-old Nat and eight-year-old Abby. Moshe raised his glass and recited the blessing over the wine, which he translated as Blessed art thou oh Lord, our God, king of the universe, who blesses the fruit of the vine, before we all took a sip. This was followed by a short grace in Hebrew that was recited over the freshly baked bread that used the same basic formula but ended with bread of the earth. Festus then added a blessing for the bounty God had bestowed upon those gathered around the table before each person said what he or she was thankful for this year.
The Gorofskys were grateful for their acceptance within a community in this land where the law and those representing not only didn't persecute them but learned their laws as set forth in the Talmud and so become friends. Festus was happy to be among people whom he considered friends and, in the case of those with whom he'd arrived, family with the exception of a certain stubborn ole' scudder. Each Dillon expressed his or her thanks for being able to remain a family and watch it grow in number and closeness during this past year.
As happens with all gatherings of friends and family, the food and drink disappeared as the evening turned into night. Finally with bellies stuffed by delicious food and minds filled with congenial company torpor overtook the celebrants. Little Adam had fallen asleep. It was time to go home before the rest of the visitors did the same, even the adults. So wishing each other a happy Thanksgiving and in the case of the Gorofskys a happy Hanukkah as well, Festus on Ruth and the Dillon clan in their borrowed surrey left for home, parting ways with Festus and Doc in Dodge on Front Street at the entrance to the Long Branch, the Dillon home until Matt retired.