By Thanksgiving. The same as it always is: Colleen's turkey, the brine started on Tuesday, the cooking starting at seven in the morning on Thursday, the smell of the house by noon that is November and this family and all the years of this meal in this kitchen.
Sarah came out on Wednesday evening and stayed through Friday. Her family is in Helena and the drive would have been long and she said she'd go for Christmas instead. I wasn't sure how to feel about that — grateful and slightly overwhelmed, the way you feel when something you've been wanting from a safe distance is suddenly close. She helped Colleen with the Thanksgiving prep on Thursday morning and I watched them from the doorway for a while — Colleen showing Sarah the baste technique, Sarah asking questions that were actually good questions, the comfortable kitchen language of women who cook. Patrick ate two plates of everything and said, almost out loud, that it was good.
We took a walk along the river in the afternoon, Sarah and I, after the meal, the way you walk off a Thanksgiving. The day was cold but clear, the kind of November day that Montana does occasionally that reminds you why people choose to live here. She held my hand for the first part of the walk. I let her.
There was a moment in the evening, sitting by the fire while my parents were in the other room, when she said, "I think I'm falling for you." I didn't say anything for a while. Not the hand signal — I was just quiet. She waited. I said, "I think I need you to know that I am too, and that I'm also afraid of what that means." She said, "I know." She said it like she actually knew, which she might. She treats veterans all day. She probably knows.
Colleen’s turkey was the anchor of that day, as it always is—but it’s the sides that fill in the spaces around a meal like that, the dishes that make the table feel complete and unhurried. There’s something right about creamed corn on a Thanksgiving that cold and that full of feeling: it asks nothing of you, it just sits in the slow cooker all morning while the bigger things happen around it, and it’s warm and ready whenever the table is. That kind of quiet reliability felt like exactly what I needed to hold onto this year.
Slow Cooker Creamed Corn
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 3 hours | Total Time: 3 hours 10 minutes | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 32 oz frozen corn kernels (about 6 cups), thawed
- 8 oz cream cheese, cubed and softened
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
Instructions
- Load the slow cooker. Add the thawed corn kernels to a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker. Add the cubed cream cheese, butter pieces, and heavy cream on top.
- Season. Sprinkle in the sugar, salt, pepper, and garlic powder if using. Stir gently to begin combining, though the cream cheese won’t fully incorporate yet—that’s fine.
- Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 3 hours, stirring once at the halfway point to help the cream cheese melt evenly into the corn.
- Stir and finish. At the end of the cooking time, stir well until the mixture is creamy and fully combined. Taste and adjust salt or sugar as needed.
- Hold and serve. Switch the slow cooker to WARM to hold until the rest of the meal is ready. Serve directly from the insert.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 265 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 17g | Carbs: 27g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 210mg