Thanksgiving in May becomes tradition after 7-story fall

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Thanksgiving in May has become a tradition for April Hamilton and her family.

And it comes with turkey.

The Baton Rouge cookbook author, food blogger and cooking instructor has a lot to celebrate — though it didn’t seem like it on May 4, 2019. That’s when her daughter, Reilly, accidentally fell seven stories from the rooftop of her apartment building in New York.

And survived.

“When doctors and police are sharing this information over the phone, there is no believing it, and two years later, it sometimes still feels like a recurring nightmare,” Hamilton writes in her blog, aprilskitchencounter.com. “It’s real, and the unexpected detour that has rattled us all has also made us stronger and forever grateful!”

After what seemed like a string of endless surgeries and rehabilitation, Reilly is back living in New York. But the journey to this point was tough.

“The first year milestone came just days after Reilly had an incapacitating revision surgery, her twentieth trip to the O.R.” Hamilton writes. “She was motionless and emotional, choosing to cry it out in her dark bedroom rather than wheelchair anywhere.”

Things were better at the approach of the second anniversary in 2021, prompting Hamilton, who moved to Baton Rouge from Charleston, Virginia, to plan a Thanksgiving celebration. Her husband, Chuck, asked, “Can we have turkey?”

In the meantime, Hamilton, author of “Counter Intelligence: The Best of April’s Kitchen,” has changed her focus. She now uses food to help others in need, bringing them bowls of hot soup and fresh cookies to ease their pain.

In an interview with The Advocate, Hamilton said she started cooking as a preschooler.

“I took a series of cooking classes in fourth grade. It was a...