Thanksgiving may well be my favorite holiday of the year, despite all of the work I put into it or maybe because of it. This year’s Thanksgiving celebration was not as lugubrious as last year’s. Last year as you may recall was the first Thanksgiving my wife and I had ever celebrated with only ourselves at the Thanksgiving dinner. This year marked the return of a long-time guest, an old friend who (except for last year) always celebrates Thanksgiving with us. We look forward both to her company and the cranberry bread she brings with her.
Our menu was the same as always: smoked turkey, my take on my wife’s family’s traditional dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, braised brussels sprouts and chestnuts, homemade dinner rolls, my cranberry relish, my wife’s cranberry jello mold (this year served in individual servings), and pumpkin chiffon pie. It was one of our best efforts and certainly visually it was the most appealing. The turkey came out a deep mahogany brown, the pie crust was perfect, the rolls were perfect, the gravy was my best ever. There’s something to this experience stuff.
We followed our traditions. Following Grace, each of us shared with the others what we were thankful for in the past year, starting from the youngest guest and ending with the oldest. Nowadays I’m always the oldest. We serve our mashed potatoes in a bowl that had belonged to my wife’s paternal grandmother and which she had used for mashed potatoes on holidays. I baked our dressing in a casserole made by one of my siblings. Our best dishes, silver, and glassware, the dishes and silver well over a century old (more like 140 years old).
For a number of years I’ve made a practice of serving Beaujolais nouveau with the Thanksgiving meal. I think it holds up well against the robust and varied flavors of the Thanksgiving meal (when I serve a white it’s usually a Gewürtztraminer for the same reasons). The Beaujolais nouveau becomes available just a week or so before Thanksgiving. As Ben Franklin said of beer, I take that as proof that God loves as and wants us to be happy.
The one tradition I didn’t follow was that I didn’t make myself an Old Fashioned at the end of the day and drink it from one of my old pattern glass footed tumblers. Maybe tonight.
I hope that all of my readers had a peaceful and happy holiday, surrounded by their loved ones.
We had to adapt to a new cooking scheme. We have pretty much informally adopted a couple from our practice. We adore their kids and they adore us. A 5 y/o and 2 y/o twins. So we finally got an air fryer and made the kids french fries. Also cut out a couple of last minute dishes since I dont have time to do those while chasing the kids around the house. Lots of fun having the little ones there but so exhausting.
Steve
Sounds like a great opportunity to make poutine!
LOL. Never thought of that. I actually have lots of leftover turkey gravy. May give it a try. If I never post here again that means the heart attack from the poutine got me.
Steve
Were a dish to be concocted specifically to induce heart problems, it would be poutine. Three of the five food groups are represented: fat, salt, and starch. The other food groups are, of course, sugar and chocolate.
Ok. An eclair for dessert. Might as well go for it!