This year, Thanksgiving at our house is going to look a little different. My daughter’s coming home and it’ll be just the three of us—but after five decades of helping my grandma then my mom, then hosting it myself, roasting, basting, and pretending I enjoy peeling potatoes, I’ve decided to embrace a radical midlife concept:
I’m only cooking what I feel like cooking.
So this year, Cornish hens it is.
Cute little personal turkeys. Manageable. Dignified. And, frankly, far safer for my family’s digestive systems than the infamous 2006 basin-of-water turkey-thaw of doom that left us all violently ill. My daughter was barely old enough for solid foods and has been giving poultry the side-eye ever since.
But honestly? This year, I may be the one with the deeper trauma. Let’s call it a Cornish hen trauma. 
The Core Memory That Still Haunts Me
Flash back to the mid ’80s. It was close to the holiday season. The weekend before Thanksgiving. I was in college & already dating another boy, but I met this slightly older man who seemed mysterious to me. He had come into the jewelry store where I worked and bought a very expensive watch. He came back a few times and finally asked me out. I felt guilty for accepting his date since I had a boyfriend, but we were going through a rough patch and I thought I would “see what’s out there.” Boy was I in for a surprise!
This was one of the first actual grown-ups I’d ever been out with outside of my boyfriend who was just two years older. This man wore real shoes, not sneakers. He had an income and drove a car that didn’t need Bondo. He took business calls. I was impressed.
He brought me to a very fancy restaurant, MacKinnon’s, and we ordered the special…Cornish hens. I was starving—this was back when we girls would “save room” all day just to fit into our skinniest dresses. Looking down at my meno-belly, I don’t even remember having that tiny waist. Add two amaretto sours and I was both ravenous and just tipsy enough to make questionable decisions.
My date apologized profusely when he picked me up for our date and explained he was going to be on call. He was in pharmaceutical sales and sometimes he would get calls when surgeons were actually getting ready to use one of his devices. He warned me he may get a few calls and he wasn’t kidding. He kept getting called to the phone—back then, waiters literally came to your table to summon you. He told me, “If the entrée comes, please start without me.” But of course, I insisted I would wait.
The waiter finally arrived with two of those silver-domed platters that make you feel like royalty.
He set mine down. After he walked away, starving little me lifted the lid to peek—just a tease—and tempted, I reached in to pluck one tiny piece of the hen. It was a habit my mom used to hate. “Stop picking at it! Just take a piece!” But I couldn’t. I was trying to be polite and ladylike but that was about to come to a screeching halt.
My “just a taste” turned into a nightmare as my cheap drugstore Lee’s press-on nail got caught on the Cornish hen. I quickly tried to I pull my hand away and with it came the entire bird, caught on my nail. Before I could even process what was happening, it tumbled right off the plate.
It fell.
It bounced.
It rolled under the table like it was making a run for freedom.
I panicked silently, looking around. Thankfully, the restaurant was quite dark and it appeared no one had noticed…So, I tried, under the tablecloth, to feel for it with the toe of my high-heeled Candie’s—just lightly sweeping around like I was searching for a missing hamster. I was grateful we were seated at a round table with a tablecloth that went to the ground. That way, no one could see my legs scrambling beneath, like Flintstone feet. Above the table, I was calmly looking around very discreetly. I kept taking my foot and gently kicking it around, no longer caring that I might actually destroy the beautiful hen that was only seconds earlier on a silver serving dish. But I honestly felt nothing. Did it disappear? Did it fly away? How was it possible? It wasn’t somewhere under the table???
And then to my horror, I looked up and saw my handsome date quickly approaching.
“I’m so sorry, thank you for being so patient, I am assured I won’t have to leave the table again. Now, where were we?”
I sat there staring at him. Blink. Blink. Think. C’mon, Janice. What are you going to tell him?
He lifted his silver cover and encouraged me to do the same. “I feel bad, I hope it didn’t get cold while you were waiting for me, I told you to go ahead and start without me…”
I didn’t hear a word he was saying because I was paralyzed with fear. My mind was racing. What do I do? Now comes the moment of truth, but how do I tell him? Nobody would believe me. Thankfully the waiter came over and solved it for me.
“Is there a problem with your entrée, miss?”
Blink blink … stare…
Two men over the age of 30 were staring at me waiting for me to lift the silver cover and I had two choices. I could feign shock and say “oh my gosh, where did my hen go?” or I could just come clean, which is what I did.
“I’m so sorry, I was so hungry, I just went ahead and ate. I couldn’t stop myself. I ate it all.”
Bones & all???
Both men stood there and stunned silence, looking at me.
I knew at this point I would never have a second date with this man anyway. It didn’t even occur to me that he might wonder how little tiny size 3 me ate. It. ALL.
I cringed as I thought to myself “Bones and all?? OMG. What was I thinking????”
My date’s face couldn’t have been more transparent. He blinked. He Stared. I’m sure he must have questioned physics AND his choice to take me out. After a second of recovery, he quietly started eating while I pretended to be dainty and satisfied, even though I was still starving to death. There was very little awkward small talk. We sat in silence. I kept looking down at my one missing press on nail and trying to hide that finger by curling it under.
After the longest half hour of my life, our waiter came back to clear my suspiciously spotless plate and asked about dessert. By then, I wanted to order the whole damned menu but instead, I chirped, “Oh no, after that delicious Cornish hen, I couldn’t possibly!”
(Note: there were no face palm emojis back then, but I was definitely feeling it.)
THE GRAND FINALE
If you think this was the end, you’re in for a treat. My face is red as I write this because I’m still blushing from the horror. As I stood up to leave and stepped out from behind the table… something felt slippery. I looked down.
And there it was.
The Cornish hen.
Still. Attached. To the heel of my 3 inch Candie’s stiletto shoe. I didn’t feel it because the skin was wrapped around my stiletto heel and it had torn from the Cornish hen, but not enough to detach from it completely.
And there I was, standing. With a game hen attached to my stiletto heel. There was no hiding it. In a movie, this would be the nightmare scene where everyone’s looking at you and everything spins around and people are pointing and laughing.
Guests pointing.
Waiters staring.
My date blinking like he’d witnessed a crime.
Traumatized doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m still in therapy.
I don’t really remember much from that point on because I had long since blocked the trauma in my brain of that faithful day 40+ years ago. He must’ve driven me home. He must’ve laughed about it. I must’ve looked down at my shoes with my pantyhose stained with oil from the game hen. He must’ve told that story the rest of his life. I don’t know whatever happened to that young man.
And here’s the confession I’ve never put in writing, until today:
I have told this funny little story for YEARS… but I always said it happened to “a friend.”
You know—the mysterious friend who conveniently has all our most humiliating experiences.
Well, four decades later, I’m coming clean.
It was me.
It was ALWAYS me. Hence, why some of my closest friends call me Lucy.(Looking at you, Lori K! )
And honestly? Admitting it feels like some serious emotional de-cluttering. I have not eaten a Cornish hen since then. Even when my mom would make them an occasion. My mom was the only person that ever knew the whole story and she took it with her to the grave, I couldn’t even look at at Cornish hens in a grocery store! So this Thanksgiving should be a real treat. <Insert eyeroll> One thing is certain, I also haven’t worn Candies’ stilettos in four decades so I think my Cornish hen is safe from being gouged from a stiletto today. So happy that we didn’t all have our cell phones back then. Or maybe I’m not so happy because I might’ve been a viral sensation and humiliated for life. But seriously … wishing you all a lovely and humiliation-free day. Happy Thanksgiving and may your hen, whatever size, remain on its dish!
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