NL woman, 95, brings decades of tradition to her Thanksgiving table
Nov. 22—NEW LONDON — "I didn't know how to cook when I got married."
That matter-of-fact admission by 95-year-old Naomi Paulson came from inside her daughter's Quinnepeag Avenue kitchen on Tuesday, where a 12-pound turkey was being prepped for brining, balls of pie dough were setting in a freezer and a fresh batch of cranberry sauce was just starting to gel.
"The first thing I ever really cooked for my husband back in 1955 was a roast chicken," Paulson said before she ventured out to a backyard herb garden where sprigs of rosemary and thyme were plucked. "I forgot to take out the bag inside the chicken before it went in the oven."
Over the course of nearly seven decades, Paulson, a Bronx, N.Y., native now living with her daughter, Susan Epstein, taught herself to bake the kind of flaky pies, roasted turkeys and batches of giblet gravy she'll help prepare for eight guests on Thanksgiving Day.
Paulson's gravy: Giblets; olive oil; 1 onion; celery; 2 carrots; 3/4 cup white wine; turkey drippings; chicken stock; 1 1/2 tbs. corn starch; 2 tbs. butter; sale and pepper to taste; parsley and herbs. Simmer until thickened.
And it all started with a night of dancing in 1952. Paulson, then a public health nurse ― she'd go on to work as a New London Public Schools nurse and supervisor ― went out to cut a rug with a young man whose 6-foot, 2-inch height proved to be an issue for the much more petite Paulson.
"When we danced ― I liked to polka ― I just came up to the tip of his tie," she said. "But he introduced me to Ned, who was 5 foot, 7 inches."
"Ned" was Nathan Paulson, the electrical engineer she later married. The two moved to New London and settled down to raise a family as Paulson began transforming herself into the kind of cook who'd bake homemade birthday cakes and host dinner parties.
After her marriage, Paulson's cooking classrooms were the public libraries, where she studied recipes from cookbooks, and a couch at home where she quickly wrote down recipes that aired on Julia Child's "The French Chef" television show.
"She uses her own laptop now to find recipes," Epstein said.
Paulson also swapped recipes with neighbors and relatives, though she wasn't pleased after learning a cousin's presumably "original" cake recipe was in fact plagiarized from a popular recipe she stumbled across years later.
"That's the secret of my success," she said. "I knew I needed to figure out how to cook, how to set a table and entertain. I enjoy that; putting things together and seeing it all come out to the table."
And for the big annual Thanksgiving meal, getting it all right means preparation ― lots and lots of preparation.
By Tuesday night, Epstein had already placed napkins folded into rosebud shapes on the dinnerware her mother received as a wedding present and sets of flowers were arranged into a table centerpiece.
Paulson's yams: 2 large cans of yams; 2-3 navel oranges; maple syrup; 1/2 stick of butter. Combine ingredients in dish and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
The homemade cranberry sauce was cooling while Epstein reviewed a turkey-brine recipe. In the freezer, two balls of dough dotted with specks of butter were hardening ahead of being flattened into apple pie crusts.
"This is the first week I've taken the whole week off to help my mother with the preparations," Epstein said. "That lets us work at a slower pace and not rush. It's been really fun. We spent four hours just planning and setting up the table."
The holiday meal plan calls for the family sitting down to dine at 6 p.m., allowing the pair to break up the cooking over several days. Most of the meal's recipes have been fine-tuned by Paulson over the years ― especially her pie crust.
"She used to make this crust with cream cheese, which I loved, but one day she decided she'd start experimenting with different crusts," she said. "Now it's a pie with seven different types of apples."
"I can't help it," Paulson said. "I want a flaky crust."
Many of Paulson's recipes, like her cranberry sauce, are deceptively simple, at least on the surface. But the original directions for preparing the four-ingredient side dish have since been tweaked to omit water and include more juice.
"And the berries have to be Ocean Spray, with the stems pulled out," she said. "The pie crusts now include two eggs and vinegar and little 1/2 -inch cubes of butter."
Paulson's cranberry sauce: One 12-ounce pack of fresh cranberries; 1 cup sugar; 1 unpeeled navel orange cut into 1/2 -inch pieces; 1 cup orange juice. Boil ingredients rapidly until berries pop. Chill and serve.
The yams are unabashedly spooned straight from a can and combined with lots of maple syrup and butter before being reheated. Paulson said her evolution as a cook can partially be attributed to her adherence to simple ingredients and the advancement of technology.
"Back when I started, there weren't freezers or food processors, those things that make cooking a lot easier," she said. "And the first time I started using fresh herbs? What a difference."
On Wednesday afternoon, Paulson and Epstein peeled apples ahead of the pie bake and planned to take it easy until Thanksgiving, when the turkey was set to be roasted, the dressing baked and Brussels sprouts caramelized.
"I now have memory problems in the middle of doing things where I don't remember where I am in the world or the room," Paulson said. "But if I keep quiet and gather my thoughts, I can function with the help of my daughter. My secret to a long life is just keep moving."
Paulson recalled the reaction of her husband, who died in 2019, to her first home-cooked meal, that chicken with the forgotten bag still inside.
"He ate everything on his plate and bragged about me to everyone," she said. "I'm very blessed to have people here that care about me."
