For immigrant families, Thanksgiving blends the old and the new. How very American.

“Orange potatoes with marshmallows?”

My mom couldn’t imagine it.

“But that’s what Americans eat, Mamko!”

I studied the storybook pictures of holidays, listened to what I heard at school and totally drove my poor mom crazy asking her to create a real, American Thanksgiving.

That year, my Czech-born mother made a glistening chicken, potato dumplings and spinach. That’s the best she could come up with. And it was delicious.