It’s official. The countdown to Thanksgiving has begun. I ordered our fresh turkey yesterday from our local butcher, rather than buying a frozen Butterball injected with heaven knows what at the grocery store chain. I see that Chestertown Natural Foods is carrying fresh, free-range turkeys. Otwell’s Market in Galena is another option. Don’t procrastinate like I did!
Every year we have Thanksgiving challenges. I try to follow an idealized checklist that I picked up at Williams Sonoma years ago. It is a slim pamphlet, really; greasy and flour-y and well dog-eared: A Chuck Williams Thanksgiving 1994. (That must have been the year we had twenty [plus kids] to a big outdoor Thanksgiving Feast.) It lists fixings that “typical” Thanksgiving dinners include, but they didn’t count on my persnickety bunch. Here are some of Chuck’s course suggestions: Crostini with Black Olive Spread (with cocktails), Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes (heresy!), French Carrots with Cassis, Fresh Green Peas with Mint, Ginger-Pear Cranberry Sauce. I am afraid to reveal to you that we are Ocean Spray canned cranberry jelly folks, and we like to see the grooves from the tin can on the jelly in the dish. And instead of Crostini, we will probably have a 1950s relish spread: celery stalks, carrot sticks and gherkin pickles.
Now an avowed pescatarian, two Thanksgivings ago the Pouting Princess forgot her newly-minted vegetarian status and poured a ewer’s worth of turkey gravy over her mashed potatoes, which had also been made with chicken broth. Now she is more vigilant. We will have to use vegetable stock for the potatoes, and if she doesn’t hunt and gather some tasty organic roots to roast, then we will have to slip a piece of fish into the oven, at the critical moment when the turkey is resting on the kitchen counter, and when I usually remember to bake the rolls and steam the green beans. (No Campbell’s Mushroom Soup-base casseroles here!) We laugh at the number of Thanksgivings when I have forgotten the beans altogether. Perhaps it is the sacramental wine…
Chuck Sonoma assumes that we will eat Baked Chestnut-and-Sausage Dressing. He suggests we prepare the fresh breadcrumbs the night before, when I will be supervising silver polishing. We will have two stuffings, one with sausage and Pepperidge Farm breadcrumbs and lots o’celery, and one with tofu, I fear. And no oyster stuffing, though I hope it will be on many an Eastern Shore dinner table.
In the links below there is a lovely, helpful article about dishes you can prepare in advance of the big day. Usually I don’t mind cooking all day on Thanksgiving, because we eat around six o’clock, so we can enjoy candles and more wine. (Note to self: buy dripless candles this year. Two years ago as the Pouting Princess was scarfing down those turkey gravy-doused potatoes, listening to our well-tippled guest badgering on about some obscure foreign film, while the eight candles in the chandelier dripped rivulets of molten wax onto the good tablecloth, the ancestral silver and into the all-important glasses of wine…)
I was also glad to read the article Will I Kill My Family If I Cook the Stuffing Inside the Turkey? We have always cooked it separately, fearful of a rogue salmonella colony. Now perhaps I can eliminate at least one crusty baking dish that requires a hearty scrubbing.
We are trying something new this year: the children are going to contribute one dish each to the meal. Chuck Sonoma thinks that Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake would be an excellent contribution to a relaxed holiday meal. I live with savages who do not like Pumpkin Pie. They are positively un-American. The Tall One’s offering will be a Key Lime Pie, a tasty treat he learned to love this summer. Will it be Thanksgiving without our customary Flourless Chocolate Cake? Undoubtedly. We still don’t know what the Pouting Princess will prepare. She floats in Wednesday night, so we shall be surprised.
No Food Friday next week. I will be busy making Pilgrim Sandwiches. I hope you have a wonderful, fattening and convivial holiday!
“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”
Calvin Trillin
https://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/thanksgiving-countdown-flaky-pie-crust/
https://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/on-the-question-of-gravy/
https://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforums/blogs/badaily/2011/11/thanksgiving-stuffing-family-t.html
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