Put the turkey in this morning, then went to the dog park with Dora. This tree was looking very sculptural.
It's another warm day, with sun, blue sky, and broken cloud, as you see here:
Goldengrove, meanwhile, has done unleaved.
The years spin faster and faster, and here we are. But it's a beautiful day, the turkey is cooking, everything else is basically done, just needing reheating . . . it's not a bad way to be.
Our Thanksgiving menu for four people:
*Smallish turkey, seasoned with salt and pepper and onion powder, stuffed with celery and carrots, and smeared with a paste of cooking oil (avocado in this case), spicy brown mustard, and Worcestershire sauce, in which it has luxuriated since about this time yesterday. Now cooking in the countertop turkey roaster I'm glad every year to have bought.
*Southern cornbread dressing, my own recipe, which varies slightly from year to year. I make a pan of cornbread, using heavy cream for the liquid, which makes it very light and fluffy. I make, also, a coarse puree of onion, carrot, and celery in chicken bone broth or stock, with salt and pepper and eggs --- I think this time I used three. I make, essentially, a bread pudding of this puree with the cornbread, which I break up and mix into the puree, then spread in a baking dish to bake until golden brown. People exclaim over this dressing, including people who dislike cornbread dressing, so I guess it's good. I like it, at any rate.
*Mashed sweet potatoes. I don't do the marshmallow thing. I hate that. I just boiled, peeled, and mashed a bag of sweet potatoes with enough heavy cream to make them smooth, then added maple syrup and honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. I like them lightly sweet but not like dessert. You can add things like pecans and raisins, but for the four of us, I simply did not do any of that.
*Sauteed green beans in butter with salt and pepper, the only thing I haven't cooked yet.
*Pies:
1. Pumpkin, more or less following Julia Child's recipe in The Way to Cook. Pumpkin puree + heavy cream + honey, maple, syrup, molasses, and brown sugar to taste, + cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, and a splash of bourbon.
2. Apple, totally not from scratch. I have a bunch of cans of fried cinnamon apples from Aldi in my cabinet stash, so I cooked down a couple of these with some butter to thicken the liquid, then spooned the lot into a crust. The end.
I think this will be ample. I had some yogurt for breakfast and am so totally not hungry that words fail me to describe my current lack of hunger. But the turkey does smell good.
Wearing today, in some dodgy dog-park shots:
Thought I'd break out my thrifted maxi skirt to change up my Fiona dress for the holiday. Fiona does work well as a top. I was wearing merino tights underneath with my boots, but was so hot by the time I got home that I stripped off both the tights and the boots and stepped into my blue EVA Birks (not shown in any photos I took).
Here I squint dubiously into the sun . . .
When I left the house, it was supposedly only 41F, but I did not need that jacket.
Here's a clearer outfit shot from a better angle:
I've worn my marine-blue Maggie dress with this skirt and really liked the combination, but I also like the teal Fiona with it. It's not a match, but I think the colors harmonize well. I have to pull this skirt up kind of high on my torso, but all in all, I like the whole look. I like the scoop neck and 3/4-length sleeves as features for a top. One thing I don't envision feeling the need to buy is . . . a top. I hardly wear the t-shirts I do have, and meanwhile, the dresses I have perform that function admirably.
About time to start shuffling food into the oven. Happy Thanksgiving!