Cracker Dressing

Thirty Monday. The actual day. Mom made me biscuits and gravy at five-thirty in the morning before chores because she said birthdays should start early and with pork, which is a Mom philosophy and which I am not going to argue with. Patrick was up. He came to the table and ate a biscuit. He said, You are thirty, son. I said, Yeah, Dad. He said, Your grandfather was thirty when he bought this ranch in nineteen forty-eight. I said, I know, Dad. He said, You are thirty and you are running it. I said, Yeah, Dad, I am. He said, He would be proud. He looked at me. I looked at him. I said, Thanks, Dad. He nodded. He went back to his biscuit. That was the conversation. Two minutes. A lifetime in it. The Gallagher way. I will remember the conversation for the rest of my life.

I went to work at six. I shod a horse in Roundup at eight, drove home for lunch, did chores, and Saturday cookout was Saturday so the actual birthday was a normal day with the addition of biscuits at dawn and the conversation. I thought about Derek. He was twenty when he died. I am thirty. I have been alive for ten years he did not have, and the ten years have been the rough ten and the rebuilding ten and the becoming-something ten, and I have done with them what I have done. Derek would have been twenty-nine on Halloween. He would have done with his ten years what he would have done. I think about this often. I do not have conclusions. I do not need conclusions. I have my ten years and he had his twenty and we are even or not even and the math is not the point. The being alive is the point. I am thirty and being alive.

Tara is twenty-one weeks. Cole called Sunday with an update — everything good, baby kicking, Tara feeling well. They have decided on a name and they are still not telling. They will tell us at the baby shower in late December which Mom and I are driving up for. Mom is making three things for the shower, including a quilt she has been working on since September. The quilt is beautiful. The squares are pieces from Patrick's old work shirts and from one of Cole's baby blankets and from a dress Mom wore when she was pregnant with Cole. The quilt is a history of the family in fabric. The baby will sleep under it. The history will warm her. Mom does not say it like that. I say it like that. She is the family historian and the family does not know it.

I made elk stew Wednesday from this year's elk. The first stew of the new elk. The recipe Mom's mother made, with carrots and parsnips and pearl onions and red wine and bay and rosemary, four hours in the Dutch oven, served with a chunk of Mom's sourdough and butter. Patrick had two bowls. Mom had two bowls. I had two bowls. The kitchen smelled of stew for a day and a half. The smell of stew on a December day in a Montana kitchen with a wood fire and snow on the ground is the smell of being alive in a place that knows how to be alive in winter. I am thirty. I am thinking about smells now. The cooking has become this — not just food but the sensory architecture of a life, the smells that attach to memories that attach to people. Mom's kitchen smells one way. The shop smells another. The barn smells another. My truck smells another. Each smell is a place I have been and a person I have known. The book gestured at this. The book did not get all of it. There may be another book. I do not know yet. I am not pushing. The first book emerged. The second one will emerge or it will not.

Saturday cookout was eight men. Marcus made eighty-four days. We had the elk stew and corn bread. The temperature was eighteen. The fire was big. We were tight around it. The men sang one song late in the evening — a song one of the Donnelly cousins had brought, an old country song about home, which we all knew or pretended to know, and we sang together off-key in the firelight under the cold sky. I do not sing. I sang. I am thirty. I am singing now around fires with men who are sober alongside me. The fire helps. The stew helps. The biscuits at dawn help most. Patrick said, He would be proud. I am keeping that one in the pocket where I keep the few things I cannot afford to lose.

The elk stew was Mom’s mother’s recipe, and that’s the one I keep coming back to when I think about what food actually does at a table — it carries people who aren’t there anymore into the room and sets them down quietly next to the ones who are. This cracker dressing is the same kind of recipe: the kind that has been written on an index card in someone’s handwriting for forty years, the kind that fills the kitchen with a smell that means home before the pan even hits the oven. I made it for the Saturday cookout alongside the stew, and eight men ate it standing around a fire in eighteen-degree weather like it was the most natural thing in the world, because it was.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 10

Ingredients

4 cups coarsely crushed saltine crackers (about 2 sleeves)
3 cups day-old white bread, torn into small pieces
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 large yellow onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 1/2 cups chicken broth, warmed
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon dried sage
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt (adjust to taste — crackers carry salt)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside.
Sauté the aromatics. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more. Remove from heat.
Combine the base. In a large mixing bowl, combine crushed crackers and torn bread pieces. Pour the sautéed onion and celery mixture over the top and toss to coat.
Add liquid and eggs. Pour warmed chicken broth over the mixture a little at a time, stirring gently after each addition, until the dressing is moist but not soggy. Fold in the beaten eggs, sage, thyme, pepper, salt, and parsley. The mixture should hold together when pressed but not be wet.
Bake. Transfer to the prepared baking dish and spread evenly. Bake uncovered for 40–45 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the center is set. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil for the last 15 minutes.
Rest and serve. Let rest 5 minutes before serving. Serve warm alongside roasted meat, stew, or anything that needs a solid, honest thing next to it on the plate.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cracker Dressing — The Recipe That Shows Up When Family Does