Is that a plate of dinner or is that a plate of dinner? I’ve decided that from now on the Thanksgiving dress code will be sweatpants. All belts must come off at the door.
We had a big feast tonight despite my intentions to keep things simple. It really wasn’t complicated—the usual roast turkey, a Winter’s bird stuffed with the same stuffing my mom always made: sautéed onions and celery, cubed bread and sage. I made a quick cranberry sauce by dumping a bag of cranberries into a pot with a splash of cranberry juice, a heaping cup of sugar, and a couple of chopped plums. I’d never done plums before, but it worked wonderfully and the sauce gelled nicely—maybe the fruit helped. It was a pleasant change from the usual orange-flavored version.
Alongside the turkey we served Brussels sprouts with candied pecans. If you cook the sprouts and candy the pecans ahead of time, you can finish everything right before dinner; they were surprisingly popular for something people often claim to dislike. We also had carrots from our garden and parsnips pan-roasted with butter, oil and thyme. There was another loaf of cheesy garlic batter bread and sweet potatoes baked with the turkey, then mashed with microwave-softened butternut squash—just a drizzle of maple syrup and a dab of butter finished them off.
After dinner the house erupted—kids ran around, there was shouting, sidewalk hockey on the front walk, and someone even threw crab apples at the house. The children had a blast.
Some of us lingered in the kitchen dipping leftover stuffing into the bottom of the gravy pan. The gravy was dark, sticky and deeply flavorful tonight. The drippings in that pan were the stuff of dreams—rich and concentrated with almost no grease to skim—a kind of savory dessert in themselves.
For actual dessert there was pie, because it has to be upside-down pear gingerbread or pie—I’ve long been particular about pumpkin. This year I bent my own rules a bit: on a recent trip to Kelowna I found a freezer full of homemade pies—apple raisin that reminded me of my great-aunt Noreen, and cherry—each with handwritten baking instructions attached. I could only sneak two pies into my carry-on, and fortunately they were unbaked since my flight was delayed.
There is still one slice of cherry pie downstairs that I expect will be excellent with thick yogurt and a hot cup of coffee in the morning—after my 10k run, of course.