Happy Thanksgiving

Turkeys at Border Springs Farm

The turkey is all brined and drying in the fridge which is otherwise crammed full of vegetables awaiting tomorrow's cooking showdown. Kennebek potatoes and Seminole pumpkins are awaiting their demise. Do they realize that the lush soil I gave them this summer was all just a trick?

The last time I cooked Thanksgiving dinner was in 2004 when our friends Kirsty and Daisy came over from Scotland. Kirsty wanted to experience the full-on OTT deal right down to Black Friday at the mall so I gave it to her. (In return she gave me her granny's tablet ("fudge") recipe.) I think we had ten that year, which is a lot for us and our little table. We had all the classic New England fixin's plus certain Southern and Southwestern dishes my guests would have rioted over had they been missing. It was WAY too much food but with four in the kitchen it wasn't too bad for work.

This year it's me and my knife feeding four plus a plate for a neighbor who will be working late at the hospital. Our turkey is an humanely raised heritage breed from Border Springs Farm that spent its' life roosting in a hardwood forest about 30 miles from Stratheden. We've had heritage birds before and woweee.... they taste so much better than the 40 cents a pound stuff at the grocery. It's a real treat! I can't wait to see the smile on our elderly bachelor farmer neighbor's face when he tastes old fashioned turkey.

The menu is as follows:

turkey with bread stuffing
mashed potatoes
pumpkin puree
collard greens
broccoli with feta cheese sauce
cranberry sauce
green chile sauce
home-made chutney
real gravy
buttermilk biscuits
---------
peach pie with custard
chocolate cake

That's right- no pumpkin or pecan pie, no sweet potatoes, no green bean casserole. Darn it, this is MY version of Thanksgiving dinner. If I could get good blueberries we'd be having savoury blueberry muffins too. Martha Stuart and relatives rolling in graves be damned.

Late next week we will be picking up another Thanksgiving treat... We gave our friend Tim hunting rights on our property in return for a deer (or more) a year. He's brought close friends half a dozen times this month and they've shot a few out of our overly-large herds but tonight Tim finally got one. So, we have a young doe aging at the butchers and our neighbor has the hide for tanning.

Indeed, it's a Happy Thanksgiving for us!