My Big Fat Greek Thanksgiving

Well I spent most of my Thanksforgivingusyourland this year in airports and airplanes working my way back from Wichita, but when I arrived in New York I wound up in the home of a fat Greek and his family on East 57th Street.

A friend had wangled the invitation from the Greek, whom we'll call Jimmy (his real name) and who gets his back adjusted at the chiropractor's office where she works. We knew the party would be good because Jimmy the Greek runs a business that supplies restaurants around Manhattan with food.

Jimmy greeted us in the hallway and hugged us, pressing his sweaty face against our faces.

Now damn that's a spread, I said when I walked in. Food everywhere. Hanging on the walls, dripping from the ceiling. Shrimp, guacamole, bakhlava, pies, the usual turkey stuffing cranberry, wines, on and on as far as the eye could see.

There were so many old Greeks sitting around this little apartment that at first there were no chairs for us, and we just stood there in the center of the room with 20 pairs of eyes checking us out. But soon everyone introduced themselves and welcomed us and even toasted us. It was the warmest family feeling I've seen in a long time. People speaking Greek and English with Greek accents, laughing, teasing each other. A crazy old uncle doing card tricks for a wide-eyed little girl. When he ran out of card tricks, he started walking around with zombie glasses and making animals out of the cloth napkins.

The matriarch, Christine, was 87, one eye open one eye closed. She was a sweeter version of my grandmother, with the same New York accent but higher-pitched than I expected and none of my Nana's bitterness.

She asked for red wine and they tried to trick her with cranberry juice. "This isn't wine!" shouted the little hunched-over figure. "I asked for wine!"

"Come on Ma, it's fruit wine," said Jimmy.

"Ah baloney!" Then she leaned in to me and added, "Or like we used to say: bullshit!"

I couldn't stop laughing at this one.

Jimmy the Greek kept trying to force his mother to eat. "Ma,
eat. It's important, you gotta eat!"

She turned to me: "You ever heard of Hitler or Mussolini?"

Christine started dancing with her brother, 86, though both could hardly walk. It was a traditional Greek dance in which both partners hold the same cloth napkin and twirl around. Somebody had made a huge poster of the two as children, around 3 and 4 years old. They were adorable and you could see the facial resemblance, the little bit of overhanging upper lip each still had.

I don't know where Jimmy bought his belt, but it must have been 100 inches long. His girth was matched only by his hospitality, and he was constantly bringing around food and making sure we were happy. There was a Russian and a Chinese and other people who had no family in the area, and Jimmy had welcomed them all.

Wow, it was unbelievable. My only regret was drinking a bit too much red wine, so that I went into a bit of a trance state and when I finally stood up I flopped a slice of cake onto the table while trying to serve it to someone across the table.

Jimmy's aunt taught me some Greek that's too complicated for me to remember now. They passed around an old picture of Jimmy as a young trim college stud with shaggy locks, and the aunt kept shaking her head, saying, "It's a shame." Apparently he started gaining weight after his father died. At 50 now, his family must know he doesn't have much longer to live if he stays that fat. But for one night, that sweaty man was the greatest host I've known, mixing his dearest family with complete strangers who had nowhere else to go for the holiday.