For the first time in more than two decades, Val Filice missed
Thanksgiving dinner at the Lord’s Table. But Joe Peralta, his old
friend and longtime fellow cook, carried on the 27-year tradition
and focused on passing along the duties of cooking for 300 to the
next generation.
GILROY
For the first time in more than two decades, Val Filice missed Thanksgiving dinner at the Lord’s Table. But Joe Peralta, his old friend and longtime fellow cook, carried on the 27-year tradition and focused on passing along the duties of cooking for 300 to the next generation.
Joe Peralta, 90, initiated the first Lord’s Table Thanksgiving dinner 27 years ago and missed his old sidekick who died earlier this month after battling pancreatic cancer.
“I really miss Val. The old timers are fading away, but I’m working on breaking in these younger guys,” Peralta said, gesturing to his great-grandson, Jon Ruiz, 30.
“I just come to spend time with grandpa,” Ruiz said as he dried the massive pan that had earlier been filled with turkey meat.
Peralta said that the first couple years he and his friends put on the dinner were a bit hectic, but after three decades of practice, the event runs without a glitch.
Peralta and his crew of cooks spent Wednesday evening cooking 27 turkeys at Christopher Ranch. At 24 pounds a bird, the crew cooked almost 650 pounds of turkey. None of it went to waste.
The Lord’s Table Hot Meals Program is run by St. Joseph’s Family Center in Gilroy. Thanksgiving dinner was served in the St. Mary School gymnasium. Claire Francis, the program’s coordinator, said that her volunteers served 325 plates of turkey with all the fixings – mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, yams, salad, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Rows of tables set with festive decorations and silverware were filled with families enjoying the holiday together over a carefully prepared meal.
Rick Rodriguez of San Martin has been coming to St. Joseph’s Thanksgiving dinner since 1991 and brought fiancee Debbie Acosta this year.
“This is where everybody meets,” Acosta said, waving hello to several friends. The couple planned on spending the rest of the day watching the football game or just enjoying the day’s beautiful weather outdoors on a hike.
“Gilroy has the best food,” Rodriguez said.
“Gilroy’s got more heart,” Acosta added.
“This is a great moment for us. The community comes out in droves. I’d love to take credit for the food,” said St. Joseph’s Director, David Cox, as he looked over the gathering of Gilroy’s community members enjoying the meal and appreciated the smells wafting from the kitchen. “But the cooks are so seasoned, it runs like a well-oiled machine in there,” he nodded toward the kitchen and acknowledged his pun, peppering his speech with several others. “Joe Peralta has been a fixture here for years and Val’s with us in spirit.”
Newer volunteers took the cue from Peralta and Filice and devoted their Thanksgivings to putting on the meal. Arthur Velasquez of Gilroy said he wanted to start his own Thanksgiving tradition by volunteering and returned to St. Mary’s, the school he attended as a child, to lend a hand setting up tables and preparing for the dinner.
“You gotta start some time,” Velasquez said looking around the gym filled with smiling faces and warm conversation. “This place has all kinds of memories.”
Behind the scenes, the kitchen bustled with about 10 cooks of various experience, most of whom were large men. They deftly maneuvered around each other, each with his own task.
In his 12th year as a volunteer cook, Raul Tellez has been a meat cutter in Gilroy for 40. The designated turkey carver, Tellez was at Christopher Ranch the previous night helping to cook the birds and showed up at the gym at 7:30 a.m. Thanksgiving morning to slice the meat.
“There’s no dry turkey here!” he said. The cooks put the turkey skins and bones in enormous pots of simmering broth to use for the gravy and stuffing and to keep the turkey moist.
Remembering past years with her father running the kitchen, Valerie Filice marveled at the cooks’ ability to produce quality food for such a large group. “Cooking for 300 was nothing for him,” she said of her father. “He knew what it took to taste good.” Even though this was the first year without Val Filice manning the stove, Peralta and his proteges still had all the ingredients for a successful Thanksgiving dinner.
