I tell you, the snowmen in this neighborhood are up to something.
Thanksgiving morning, and the house still smells like everything I cooked yesterday: cranberry sauce, cornbread dressing, and pies. I'll put the turkey in the roaster around 10, I guess, which would mean lunch around 1-ish --- a reasonable schedule, I think.
Then while it's cooking I'll do mashed sweet potatoes and gravy and sheet-pan brussels sprouts with walnuts --- marinated in balsamic vinegar and brown sugar, I think (crusing the internet looking for actual recipes the morning of, as one does). The sprouts are mostly pretty small, but I think I'll halve them anyway, because they look nicer and cook better that way. There are still plenty on the stalks out there, so I hope, since sprouts are a cold-weather crop which supposedly produce their own antifreeze, we can have them for Christmas, too.
Cornbread dressing, by the way, for anyone not in the know, is the Southern variation on the turkey-stuffing* theme. Essentially it's a bread pudding made with cornbread (step 1 of the recipe is, in fact, "make cornbread") and chicken or turkey stock. You make the cornbread, crumble it in the pan, and soak it in stock until you can mash it to a smooth texture. I like to pulse a carrot, two stalks of celery, and an onion in the food processor so that the vegetables aren't quite pureed, but are like fine little specks --- people in my house like flavors, but not actual pieces of vegetable in their dressing. I also pulsed some thyme from the garden in with the vegetables. Beat in an egg or two to hold it together, add salt and pepper to taste, and bake until firm.
*Note: I never stuff the turkey with it. Stuffed turkeys take longer to cook, and then there's the problem of getting the stuffing out again. We like our cornbread dressing served in a baking dish, where we can get at it.
So, that's the menu:
roast turkey
cornbread dressing
mashed sweet potatoes
brussels sprouts
gravy
cranberry sauce
pumpkin & cherry pies with whipped cream
This seems an adequate amount of food for four people . . . Generally by the time it's on the table I'm not hungry for it, but I dunno, the kitchen sure does smell good, even with nothing in the oven. I'm not making huge amounts of anything, either. We'll have leftovers, but not tons of leftovers. I ixnayed the idea of more sides, like corn pudding --- I love corn pudding, but there's no way the four of us can eat all that. Dressing will suffice for the "corn" portion of the menu.
The table is nicely, if modestly, set for the four of us:
I appreciate these small, quiet Thanksgivings and don't pull out all the stops. On the other hand, it's the only time of year when I use these game-bird glasses that belonged to my grandparents, so I'm glad to have a Thanksgiving table to set, to justify my having them. Well, really, I'm just curating a lot of family hand-me-downs, but it's nice actually to use them once in a while. Wedding china, my mother's great-aunt's silver, thrifted placemats, $1 bandanas as napkins, because they look fallish.
Current weather conditions: sunshine, 35F, high of 59F. Looks like a perfect late-autumn day, in fact. Think I'll go wash my hair and get dressed for it . . .
Wearing:
Wet hair, marine-blue Maggie, navy Snag merino tights, XeroTari boots, thrifted redyed Talbots cotton cardigan. Smeary mirror. This is all nice and simple and comfortable for a busy day in the kitchen. Undoubtedly I'll put on a scarf to walk the dog, but probably won't bother otherwise, since I'm cooking. It's cold enough that I'll probably dry my hair before I go out, but for now I'm just going to let it air-dry.
Think I'll start my tasks . . .
LATER:
Does this look like enough cranberry sauce? (for scale: that's a placemat underneath the bowl, not like a trivet or something).
Still life:
Brussels sprouts with walnuts + cornbread dressing awaiting their turn in the oven. Also shown: can opener and the last plum, which nobody seems to want to eat.
A closeup of the sprouts, just because they look pretty:
Now I need to get up out this chair and make some gravy.
MUCH LATER:
We walked to one end of the greenway trail and stopped off at the dog park, which was empty. Dora ran around a little then wanted to go home, so we started off down Motz street following our usual loop. And lo, from behind a house on Motz street came a big black-and-white dog on a chain, barking himself inside out.
It's okay, I told myself. He's on a chain. But either the chain had come loose at the other end, or else it was a stupidly long chain, because he had plenty of play. It was enough for him to come charging across the street at us and harry us a little way up the hill on the other side. Dora, of course, did not want to run away, but to stand and fight, and it might have gotten ugly. Somehow I managed to drag her away. Nobody came out of the house. A car came along and ran over the chain while the dog stood on our side of the road shouting unprintables after us, but otherwise we might have been the only living beings in the world.
I hauled Dora down a side street toward home. Now, having arrived there, I am trying to decide whether I want to get in the car and drive back over, to take down the house number and call Animal Control, or just what. Aside from the apparent aggressiveness, that dog did not look great. Once we were far enough away that I could get an actual look at him, I saw that he was either so wet on his haunches that the pink skin showed through the white hair standing on end, or else he had mange. And again, although he's on a chain, the chain is no impediment to his charging anybody passing on the far side of the street.
So anyway, that happened. Now we're home, though, and Dora is asleep on the sofa, exhausted from all the goings-on.
