Chris and I are at her brother's place, in Massachusetts.

I've caught the seasonal ick, so I'm alternately boiling and freezing, and the only turkey coming to mind is soup. Not recommended. It's also hailing.

We're having our usual Boggie Bloat. My friends from college get together every Thanksgiving. I'm making my rotini casserole, and a potato version for the gluten-intolerant; my famous tofu paté; the Black Hole Brownies of Death; and chocolates. I also have many jars of several kinds of daikon pickle I put up weeks ago.

When trying to figure out a vegetarian tradition for my family for Thanksgiving, I stumbled on the idea of serving a rainbow of food - one dish or one course in every color of the rainbow.

It goes over very well with my family, and tends gave me something feastive to wrap the holiday around. And it *does* make for some fun playing-with-food serving suggestions... ..."are you feeling brave? you could try doing blue this year..."

Hmm. Does Jon have an algorithm for how long it takes a frozen turkey to thaw out in the fridge?

We put ours in the fridge Tuesday night, and I'm beginning to worry that the answer to that question in our case is, functionally, "longer than that".

Dena @4: Well, there's always blue potatoes. So long as you don't do what I did with them once, which was apply my usual parsley-and-lemon-juice semi-mashed recipe to them. (Essentially: Cube potaties, cook until soft, sprinkle with lemon juice and parsley, and toss a bit.) It turns out that the blue in them is the sort of blue vegetable pigment that turns magenta in the presence of acid. The result was the sort of set of colors that is only appetizing to the adventurous.

Someday I will be considered truly adult enough to host Thanksgiving. On that day, I will finally get to try my hand at roasting the turkey. Despite a college degree and a mortgage, that day will not be tomorrow.

At least I got promoted from the kids' table. Eventually.

I'm joining the grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and dozens of cousins for dinner. I'm bringing a vegan stuffed squash. (I'm not vegan; the squash recipe just happens to be. And it is delicious.) The hosting aunt is doing the turkey. My parents have branched out this year and are preparing a maple-pumpkin cheesecake rather than their standard pumpkin chiffon pie. I'm interested to see the reaction.

Truly, I'm thankful that family Thanksgivings are fun for me. My family has the usual complement of quirks and complaints, but it's fundamentally loving and supportive.

Having the kitchen floor replaced the following day.

We must be mad.

In Australia many of us are hoping for our own variety of thanksgiving ... for the removal of the pernicious Howard government.

Also, while I seem to be realizing things that I should have put in the first comment rather than doing so many: Jon's description should probably be amended to specify "time in hours", not just "time".

Also, Google's quite happy to parse "natural log 20 times 1.65", if one wants to be lazy about the multiplication.

Caroline @7: A stuffed squash sounds like something I'd really like, and I don't have any recipes for such. Any chance you could post yours (or a loose description thereof)?

We're visiting local relations, bringing our vegetarian dish to accompany their turkey. We've done this particular dish a few times in the past, it's a basic red lentil dal, from the Vegetarian Epicure, book 2, page 310. It's mostly ginger and heat, with a side of cardamom and cilantro. That's then put into a souffle like roulade thingy (which will be made tomorrow, it's eggs and cheese mainly) and rolled up to be somewhat impressive looking on a platter.

Yes it's lentils, and that's kind of cliche. But it works with stuffing and gravy. And a thai pumpkin curry soup. And wine.

Brooks Moses @ 10 -- I surely can. I found this somewhere on the internet, back in '99 or '00. I'd credit the original if I could find it again.

STUFFED SQUASH

1/2 cup barley
Salt
1/2 cup wild rice
4 cups herb-seasoned bread stuffing cubes
1 large winter squash (2 1/2 to 3 pounds)
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 leeks, white and light green parts
only, sliced thin
1 medium onion, chopped
3 shallots, minced
3 medium portobello mushrooms,
stems discarded and caps diced
1 cup coarsely chopped cooked chestnuts
1 cup coarsely chopped cranberries,
fresh or frozen
1 navel orange, peeled, sectioned, and chopped
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/4 cup vegetable broth
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves

1. Bring 1 1/2 cups water to boil in small saucepan. Add barley and salt to taste. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until tender, about 40 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, bring 1 1/2 cups of water to boil in separate saucepan. Add wild rice and salt to taste Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until tender, about 40 minutes.

3. Turn cooked barley and wild rice into large bowl. Add bread cubes.

4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Insert blade of sharp paring knife horizontally into squash about a third of the way from the top. Work knife around until you can lift off top of squash like lid from a pumpkin. With spoon, scoop out seeds and scrape out as much of the stringy, soft flesh as possible. To make opening of squash larger, hold knife vertically and trim away the squash meat that curves in around top edge. Set squash aside.

5. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add leeks, onion, and shallots and saute until translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook until any liquid they release has evaporated, 7 to 8 minutes. Scrape vegetables into bowl with grains, and mix to combine.

6. Add chestnuts, cranberries, chopped orange, and orange zest, stirring with fork to combine them. Moisten with broth. Mix in parsley and season generously with salt to taste.

7. Pack as much stuffing as possible into empty squash, pressing it with your hand to compact it lightly. The stuffing should be mounded high. Cover squash with foil, tenting it; do not wrap squash in foil. (Cook any remaining stuffing separately.)

8. Place squash on baking sheet in center of oven. Bake 1 hour. Remove foil and bake until knife easily pierces squash at its widest point, about 20 minutes. Let squash sit 10 to 15 minutes before serving so stuffing can settle. Cut into wedges and serve.

Oh, and what's left of this bread, if it doesn't get eaten before tomorrow.

small gathering at our house. spent the day freaking out about the turkey.

Holy crap, the thing is frozen solid. Lessee, the thawing time for a fifteen pound bird is... is... three days!?!?!? Gah! so some googling around found me soaking the iceberg in a big pot of cold tap water for about ten hours. it seems fairly limber now. and is back in the fridge.

Will be putting it in the crock pot in the morning. Hopefully it all works out.

Made some whole wheat/oat bread today and will make some fresh white bread tomorrow.

I think there's a chinese place that will deliver, if I manage an epic fail.

And just to round it out, here's a fantastic mushroom gravy recipe from the same set of vegan Thanksgiving recipes. I prefer this gravy to giblet gravy. It's got this rich, round, savory flavor I just can't get enough of.

MUSHROOM GRAVY

2 1/2 cups diced onion 

2 tablespoons olive oil 

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil 

2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme 

1 teaspoon sea salt

5 cups diced white mushrooms 

1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce 

3 cups plain soy milk

1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour (I have used white all-purpose, or substituted with a smaller amount of cornstarch)

2 cups water

1. In a medium stock pot, sauté onions for 5 minutes over medium heat with oil and garlic. Add the chopped herbs and sea salt and increase heat to medium-high. Cook for 1 minute. 



2. Add mushrooms, tamari (or soy sauce) and soy milk. Bring to a high simmer, but don't boil. 



3. Mix flour and water to a smooth consistency and slowly stir this into the pot, constantly whisking or stirring until thickened, about 3 to 4 minutes.

4. Reduce heat to low and let gravy simmer for another 5 minutes. 


The NYTimes has a recipe for Simple Crusty Bread that they say is faster than Lahey's No Knead Bread. Given the niftiness of NKB, I'm about to try the SCB recipe.

Plus my traditional 3 types of cranberry sauce, and an apple quince sauce.

Brooks@5: Does Jon have an algorithm for how long it takes a frozen turkey to thaw out in the fridge?

My fifteen pounder was going to take something like three days. I found some instructions that said you can safely speed up the thawing time by submerging the turkey in cold tap water and letting it soak half an hour for every pound, and changing the water every thirty minutes to keep it cold. I think it worked.

Greg, Brooks, I realize this sounds silly but - violently massage the frozen turkey in its cold water bath. That speeds things up considerably.

I recommend rubber gloves (brrrr).

My daughter is home for the extended weekend but tomorrow she is invited to have Thanksgiving with her significant other's family. My husband and I will have all of our traditional sides (very pedestrian stuff, no fancy recipes to share) but with a turkey "thing" that's half-white/half-dark meat.

Never had it before, but I've been favorably impressed by the company's whole turkeys, so I'm hoping it will be edible. Besides, I tell myself, what's the turkey for except as an excuse to fix the stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, and all the rest, to eat at one meal? If it's not good, we'll still have plenty of food that is. Oh, and pumpkin pie for desert, of course.

Friday we cook the whole turkey that's defrosting in the fridge and do all the sides again for us and the kids.

I asked my son if there was going to be anything special for the troops tomorrow - he said was probably going to be busy and might miss it, whatever it will be. First Thanksgiving away from home and he might be out on some mission. I know that's what he signed up for, but I hope he's mistaken, or the mission gets delayed, and he gets a nice meal and maybe some special entertainment from the USO.

We're packing to get ready for the moving vans to arrive to move our crap from Lawrenceville, NJ to Austin, TX.

We're making Jambalaya to celebrate being someplace where we can get Jambalaya without using a box with Zatarain's on it. Also, we're busy packing, so an entire day to make Roux is beyond us this week.

I think the general availability of the ingredients for Jambalaya is an outcome of Hurricane Katrina.

1/2 pound Andouille Sausage
1/2 pound shrimp, uncooked and deveined
1 box Zatarain's Jambalaya mix
1 can Ro-Tel

follow directions on box. cook in crock-pot and sample throughout day. Move T-day dinner up to "when you're hungry".

Brooks Moses: The fridge ain't gonna do it. Not for more than a week.

Put it in water, change the bath every 1/2 hour. The water can be as warm as 65F (and you can change it more quickly if you like).

Greg *boggles* A 15lb bird that fits in a crock pot? That must be an extra-large family economy-size crock pot model that I haven't seen. [At work (fully dressed), so I don't have measuring equipment to say roughly what size the ones I know would be.] In Chinatown shops I've seen some fairly big rice cookers suitable for large groups, so perhaps you have something along those lines?

Whenever people start talking turkey cooking, I always get images of Mr Bean's Christmas struggles with an oversized carcass. They're not so much a feature of Aussie celebrations, and we don't have much in the way of stories about them.

As Tom Number Nine said, there are many (please, please, please, let there be enough) Australians who are looking with hope towards a change with our election on Saturday 24th. If we don't get a hung parliament, or right-slanted Senate to tilt an already far-too-right-for-me Labor government, I will be giving some very heartfelt thanks indeed, even if I don't have a good idea who or what to thank. It'd be something to celebrate with just on a month to Christmas.

We're staying put, no visitors, no visiting, which is fine by us this year.

For food we're grilling filet mignon wrapped w/ bacon, served with mashed potatoes. And, because I can't help myself, I'm going to tweak my wife by serving her a sort of deconstructed green bean casserole: steamed organic green beans topped w/ mushroom gravy (field mushrooms (chanterelles & oysters) and shallots in a classic white sauce), garnished with Vietnamese crispy-fried shallots.

She's going to love it, and I'm never going to let her forget it... ;-)

Tom @ 9 and Epacris @ 22:
I live in a liberal safe seat, so I'm voting Green in both sections to be on the safe side. Here's hoping.

Tom @ 9, Epacris @ 22 and flowery tops @ 24

Carna Greens! I don't know about you guys, but I'm a watermelon, and proud of it - Green on the outside, and red on the inside. Can't wait to turf Little Johnny and his cadre out.

Only two more sleeps to go!

I find myself replacing the words "duck" and "rabbit" with "turkey" and "election".

I knew I should have hung a left in Parramatta.

Thanksgiving by itself doesn't really mean all that much to us recent immigrants, except that it's only day of the year where finding a place to eat is really difficult.

I usually never *ever* cook at home, but just once a year it's a good excuse to bring out the pots and the pans to a home-made spaghetti bolognaise with a fellow country-man after at hearty day of mountain biking.

Maybe not exactly what the founding fathers had in mind though...

My family is all at least 400 miles away, and this year all of John's siblings and their significant others and the kidcessories are going to the other side of the family. What that oddly structured sentence means: Where I usually am one of many outlaw inlaws in a group of 16, I will be the token outlaw in a group of 4.

I'm bringing deviled eggs and a dessert. I'm supposed to have the dessert ready in about 12 hours, and I still haven't decided. I'm leaning towards Hazelnut Chocolate Pots du Creme, because it is easy, fast, and people who don't cook (my MIL) are impressed.

I'll be doing the full turkey roast thing on Friday, so John can have leftovers to snack on through the weekend, and I can make turkey soup.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We'll be home, just the three of us as Sarah has a horrid cold and we don't want people to get sick. I also have to work tomorrow night so that's another reason to stay home.

Caroline @12: Thanks muchly for the recipe; that sounds even better than I was imagining!

Thanks, everyone, for the advice about thawing the turkey! I checked on it and it was, indeed, still completely rock solid. So I have placed it in a water bath, and placed that in the fridge (so I don't have to worry about checking on it overnight without checking on it; I'm figuring the increased heat transfer coefficient will at least help a good bit) and will take it out and start changing the water tomorrow morning early.

The Younger Child has appointed herself Chief Chef. I am the Sous Chef (and will be suffered to make the pies on my own). The kid found recipes on the Food Network for an Italian-inflected Thanksgiving meal: turkey stuffed with citrus and herbs; butternut squash lasagna with basil bechamel; stuffing with pancetta; salad, pumpkin pie and apple pie.

All this is for the four of us. Friends may drop by for dessert later. It is to be hoped that the Child and I will still be on speaking terms by early evening.

Have a fragrant and peaceful Thanksgiving.

Tom @27: After a couple of years of doing a research conference that's always the Sunday through Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and then staying a couple of days later with my wife to enjoy a vacation together, I'll note that we've had pretty good luck with the hotel restaurants in reasonably good hotels. They're open because there are people travelling away from home on Thanksgiving. The restaurants are usually not that busy, though there are usually a few people there, and it seems that everyone on staff (at least the places we've been) is extra-pleasant that day.

no thanksgiving for me this weekend, i'm living in canada now, & we had our thanksgiving before halloween (as obscene as that sounds). maybe i can take advantage of the american-centric radio silence & get drawing done, instead of sitting in front of the computer! cough.

this thanksgiving was at my in-laws as always, & i made my family-recipe chicken-in-a-bag, as always.

i wanna save that vegan stuffing recipe for new years/christmas dinner, though! not only do i love mushrooms to distraction, i need some more non-meat, non-dairy dishes (i keep kosher & bring my own chicken, meaning i can't have any of the dishes with meat or dairy in).

Alone, more or less contentedly. I'd a chance to go to the friends with whom I usually spend Turkey Day, but with the latest fibro flareup I'm feeling a bit too ... fragile... for a crowd of 15 or 20. I can sort of stay on top of the pain and function, but it takes sooooooo much energy to mask that, to be other than negative and whiny to people who don't deserve having their holiday spoiled.

I've got a ginormous haul from the local food bank - 13.6 lb turkey, to start with, and literally everything I could need to do a complete dinner. (OK, they didn't include fresh cranberries, but I'd already bought a bag of them.)

So, whenever I get up, I'll start slowly puttering around in the kitchen, and about mid-afternoon there'll be a feast. And then leftovers.

I'll make a few phone calls to people I care about, that'll let me feel connected.

This year we're actually doing something for Thanksgiving (European...) - we're throwing a wake for one of my in-laws. This means serious amounts of various kinds of food (I am, as usual, in charge of dessert as the SO doesn't cook sweet), some drinking, and a heady mixture of regret and celebration.

Sigh. Netherlands, so no Thanksgiving.

Both at home sick and a little homesick. And with my son's teacher coming at 7 for a parent teacher conference, we're not even going to all sit down to dinner together.

Oh, well. Everyone else has to have some extra fun on my behalf. Raise a glass to absent friends, willya?

I was going to ask why 325° is the recommended minimum, thinking it was a biology question, and then had an epiphany and realized it was actually a physics question.

Of course, it was the nature of the post itself that led to my epiphany - the longer it takes to cook the bird, the longer it takes to cook the center of the bird, duh - so I guess I owe Jon thanks for putting me in a position to apply lab science knowledge for the first time in quite a while.

We almost skipped thanksgiving here in Senegal (no turkey importing due to bird flu) but found a guy who knew a guy at the last minute. "You need a turkey? I can get you a turkey."

I'm in the throes of a bad, migraine-inducing cold, so my ambition is to get through the day without coughing out my lungs.

Stepson #1 bought a house. Stepson's mother & I have agreed family celebrations should now be hosted at stepson's house. He and his girlfriend are not quite up to the whole production, so turkey (plus potatoes and dessert) is being cooked at his mom's house and shlepped 10 minutes. I'm producing the obligatory tangy Brussels sprouts, grilled baby squash, and the traditional romaine lettuce+avocado+mandarin orange salad.

Derocking the turkey: Brooks at #5 and Greg at #14, as Terry at #21 implies heat transfer is all.

Flashback to 1998. I'm 9 months pregnant, and for some insane-pregnant-lady reason I am obsessed for hosting Thanksgiving for about 25 relatives, many of whom are....inflexible. Meal -24 hours. Go to pick up the free-range, never-frozen, always had a fancy life turkey from the meat market. NO TURKEY! They'd sold my reserved turkey to somebody who had a name similar to mine (and go figure that one out). They did have a similar, but frozen-rock-solid turkey. Bring it home. It is good to have an engineer spouse. Remove turkey from plastic casing, enrobe in a heavy-duty plastic bag. Run bathtub full of tepid (70 degree) water. Insert turkey. Set useless culinarily-challenged houseguest to swish the bowling ball turkey through the water, and monitor water temperature, adding more hot water if water temp falls below 62 degrees. After 120 minutes, turkey is sufficiently thawed to claw out the giblet packages. Reformulate turkey packaging to "turkey condom", allowing warm water to circulate into body and neck cavities. Determine that stuffing the turkey is a bad idea, and figure out how to get that nice bread pudding texture for stuffing cooked outside of the turkey. After 6 hours (at bed time), the turkey's somewhat thawed inside and out, with a thick layer of frozen meat on the breast. Put it in the refrigerator and hope for the best.

Next morning: still a rock-like layer between surface and ribcage. More tub swishing. Decide to roast the bird breast-down at 325 degrees, adding about 50% to the estimated time, and stuff the cavity with a coarse mince of apples, pears, onions and celery, and baste frequently.

Outcome: one of the better versions. Stuffing was pretty good too, baked in casseroles covered with a plate with a brick on top to emulate the can't expand features of a turkey cavity.

Dena at #4. I like the rainbow-food tradition, but really blue food is hard to come by. When my kids were little (before blue potatoes or corn chips were available) I cheated and used blue food coloring on various iterations of mashed potatoes. There's also "confetti rice" or "jewel rice". the basic idea is that you cook rice (I like basmati) with about 10% extra water, and then toss the watery rice with diced dried fruit, which allows the fruit to partially rehydrate. Either allow to steam for a few minutes, or cool and serve cold with a mild vinagrette for a rice salad. I haven't made it with just blueberries, but I think it would be good.

My wife (a nurse) is working today, I'm staying home with the three kids. If the weather holds, brats and burgers on the grill.

Abi @ 36... Raise a glass to absent friends, willya?

But of course.

It's just Sue and me going to a nearby hotel's buffet. Then, tonight, possibly some time with these friend.

Tom (27), the Founding Fathers had nothing to do with it. Abraham Lincoln declared a "a general day of thanksgiving" at one point during the Civil War, and the holiday stuck. It was subsequently back-dated to the feast at Plymouth Colony.

Mad -- I'm posting this here, rather than trekking over to your LJ -- you have *distressed* the Macdonald, and me and Patrick and Doyle as well. It's that left-side chest pain thing. We are passing fond of you. If you have another episode like that, will you please take the canonical four aspirin and call the EMTs? In the meantime, Jim formally observes that while he can neither diagnose nor prescribe, he thinks you should have a stress test.

Tell Avocado I'm impressed by her menu and ambition, and may you all have a triumphant Thanksgiving.

Greg, you're cooking a whole turkey in a crockpot? How are you going to get the whole thing up to a safe temperature?

Abi, we'll raise a glass for you at dinner, and another glass over the ritual happy leftovers.

Xopher @ 3... The Black Hole brownies of death? Prepared by Chef Maximilian and his big red robot with the whirling bladed thingie?

No turkey here, not until Christmas, but muted celebrations. We will almost certainly see the end of a bad government, but I have no confidence that we will see the inauguration of a better one.

My mother's up in Canada visiting the sisters (because she couldn't manage to get a flight on Canadian thanksgiving); it was too short notice, and I was already on the work schedule for Saturday. So I'm attending a family friend's thanksgiving, and bringing a gluten-free cranberry-orange crisp, an untried recipe so I'm hoping that it succeeds.

No turkey here, not until Christmas, but muted celebrations. We will almost certainly see the end of a bad government, but I have no confidence that we will see the inauguration of a better one.

Dave Luckett @ 47... No turkey here, not until Christmas, but muted celebrations

At first I thought you'd written you'd have mutant celebrations.

For Brook @ #5

Refrigerator Thawing

Allow approximately 24 hours for every 5 pounds in a refrigerator set at 40 °F.

Refrigerator Thawing Times

(Whole turkey)

* 8 to 12 pounds..........1 to 2 days
* 12 to 16 pounds..........2 to 3 days
* 16 to 20 pounds..........3 to 4 days
* 20 to 24 pounds..........4 to 5 days

I posted on my LJ that the Monday before Thanksgiving should be declared "National Take Your Turkey Out Of The Freezer Day". It didn't seem to spread. Maybe someone here can come up with a better title/acronym.

Serge 44: Thank you for giving me an excuse.

BLACK HOLE BROWNIES OF DEATH

2 Sticks Butter
3 Cups Sugar
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
4 Eggs (better get Large or Jumbo)
1.5 Cups Hershey's Cocoa (try other brands at your own risk)

3/4 Cup Rice Flour (finest grind you can find)
1/4 Cup Cornstarch
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 Bag Ghirardelli's Double Chocolate Chips (if you substitute, make sure that cocoa or chocolate liquor is the FIRST ingredient, i.e. before the sugar)

1. Heat oven to 350.
2. Grease 13X9X2 baking pan. (I use butter for this.)
3. Put the Butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on HIGH until melted (about 2 min).
4. Stir in the Sugar and Vanilla.*
5. Add Eggs, one at a time, beating well with a spoon after each addition.
6. Add Cocoa, and stir slowly until it's all wet, then beat until it's well blended. (Warning: this is a LOT of cocoa. It will take some time to mix, but don't go fast, at least at first: it will puff all over your kitchen and you, putting you at risk for inhalation theobromosis. Cocoa belongs in the mouth, not the lungs.)
7. In another bowl, mix together the Rice Flour, Cornstarch, Baking Powder, and Salt. Add them to the chockiechockiegoodnessyum, and beat well.
8. Mix in the Ghir. Doub. Choc. thingies.
9. Pour it into the pan, and smooth the top as much as you can.
10. Bake 25 minutes. If the brownies are even just beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan, take 'em out. If they aren't, give 'em another 5 min. If you overbake them, they won't be ooeygooey enough.
11. Cool thoroughly at room temperature. These brownies don't hold together well--at all, actually, but especially if you try to cut them while the chocolate is still melted. I don't need to tell YOU not to put them in the refrigerator, do I? I thought not.
12. Just before cutting them, dust the top with cocoa powder. I use one of those little teaspoon tea spoons (you know, the kind you use for making a single cup from loose tea); it makes it easy to get just the right amount.

* At this point I usually taste it to make sure it's OK. Vanillasugarbutter, yum! Just don't get caught.

I'm in Yangzhou, and Thursday has come and mostly gone -- well, it's near 10 PM, anyway. But Thanksgiving hasn't happened yet. I haven't caught the scent of it, anyway.

To my mind, say, Halloween has a time-based locus -- midnight, October 31, and the period leading up to it -- but since Thanksgiving is American, it's located in the afternoon and evening of that particular Thursday in America, which happens tomorrow. Even though it will be Friday morning thru afternoon here.

I am looking forward to a cone fall* from my partners and maybe a solo dinner at Pizza Hut -- which in China is a sort of sub-fancy Italian place with soft lighting, solicitous waitstaff, and food a good deal better than they serve in America.

I don't know what else I'll do. I was planning to go explore Nanjing, but there's this tiny kitten hanging out in a box at the bottom of my staircase. I'm currently giving it dropperfuls of yogurt-water, and desperately hoping its mom will come pick it up, since cats are regarded as wild animals here and there isn't really a support network for them. (And yes, I have sufficient advice to try hand-raising it. I don't think it's in anyone's best interests for me to do more than help it along for a few days, though. It's too young, and needs its mother's care -- and I go back to Portland in June.)

It's not the first Thanksgiving I've spent alone, but it's the first since I got married. I'm feeling it right about now.

*Really, really old spoonerism in-joke that I haven't yet purged from my vocabulary. Does anyone else have that one?

This Thanksgiving will be the first in 20 years that I don't spend with my best friend and her family -- it's been a difficult year for all, and getting together was beyond our resources. Feels odd, going over to my sister's house in 70 degree weather and seeing palm trees instead of birches and snow...
I miss them very much.

Emma... Sorry to hear that.

Xopher @ 50... Vanillasugarbutter, yum! Just don't get caught.

Eeeek.

Last night was (chicken, not turkey) dinner with my side of the family. Today, we have a 3pm reservation for dinner with my husband's side.

We go to this Hall that usually does 4 weddings a night - they open all 4 halls, and in the middle put a gigantic 2 story Santa surrounded by table upon table of buffet dishes, with ice sculptures everywhere, and all along the back - section upon section of dessert. Including a huge chocolate fountain.

We love it. It's stress-free, and frankly, the food is better than what my in-laws do. (Oh, hoping they never find this, but it's true.) It's a new tradition started last year because my mil was post-surgery, and continued this year because her kitchen is being remodeled.

We haven't yet figured out how to ask for this to be a 'forever' tradition without heartbreak.

The wife, the daughter, and I made the three-hour trip up from Little Rock to Springdale to see my folks today.

My mom will be ninety in March (on International Women's Day, no less!) and is frying crappie--not traditional, but one of her favorite foods (and one of mine, and I should think of most people who get to try it). My dad will be eighty-eight in February (he shares a birthday with Ronald Reagan and Bob Marley, and I'd like to point out they've died in very much the wrong sequence). She had a TIA recently, and my dad just finished chemo for bladder cancer.

They're well as can be expected, though I'm anxious to augment their wood heating with gas. I don't trust their wiring to run the space heater they've got, and while my nearby uncle puts wood on the porch for my dad, my mom is still taking out the ashes.

Tomorrow we'll truck into Fayetteville for lunch with as many local friends as can show up, then head to Hot Springs (maybe via Little Rock, maybe not), where the wife's family does Thanksgiving on Saturday.

It is a good Thanksgiving, if a bit melancholy, as my mom's baby brother died last month, and the time I (and my daughter, who is four) have left with my parents is more on my mind every time we visit.

Epacris@22: *boggles* A 15lb bird that fits in a crock pot?

Hm, I keep using that word, but it may not mean what I think it means.

It's a slow-cooker? hm. It's about two feet wide and a foot front to back. and maybe 6 inches deep. You put some water in it, and then the roasting pan in that. An electric heater goes up to 400. The birds in it now, cooking. Just got everything set up for the turkey to cook, started a loaf of white bread in the machine, and now I have to sit down.

Electric roasting pan? It's sort of oval shaped, and it's got a semi-circular lid that just clears the turkey. Hm.

I just want to make clear that I never claimed I knew what I was doing. I'm pretty sure we used this cooker on a turkey last year. Though, now that I think about it, I"m not sure if I calculated as if it were an oven last year (350 degrees for 4 hours) or if I did some other combination. Last year the turkey came out pretty good. This year, I'm doing 350 for 4 hours. I have no idea if I'm following the same sequence that I did last year.

Gah. I don't know. Roll the dice for a +3 turkey dinner, and hope it doesn't come up all 1's. Maybe I should find that number of the chinese restaurant, just in case.

Teresa@43: Greg, you're cooking a whole turkey in a crockpot?

(shrugs shoulders and shakes head)

no habla inglaise.

:/

Teresa #43: Much as it pains me to do so, I must disagree. The Continental Congress issued a series of proclamations of General Days of Thanksgiving (1777-1784). Washington issued a proclamation of a General Day of Thanksgiving in 1789.

Lincoln revived the practice in 1862 with a proclamation of a general day of thanksgiving after the battle of Antietam, then in 1863 after Gettysburg, and in 1864 after Mobile.

1863 was the year with two thanksgivings, the one in August giving thanks for the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and one at the end of November giving thanks in general for a good year. That's the one that stuck.

So what are you up to this year?

Working, of course.

(You didn't expect us to celebrate Thanksgiving, did you?)

Goinjg over to LinD's for dinner (and more cat visitation). We're plotting All-American Turkeyday: baked sweet potatoes and mashed white potatoes and something with corn and green beans and tomatoes and cranberry jelly and turkey and pumpkin pie. She doesn't much like sweet peppers, or those would be in there too.

Popcorn may fit in there somewhere also.

Oh thank the gods. I'm not crazy after all. I just have a vocabulary issue. The thingy I'm using to cook the turkey looks remarkably similar to this. The picture even shows it with a turkey in it, so hurray, I don't have to worry about food poisoning or something. They call it a roaster oven. I will now repeat it several times to burn it into my DDR memory. roaster oven. roaster oven. roaster oven. Now, if I can just keep the refresh rate going, I'll be OK.

We don't have a very big kitchen and we have a tiny, tiny oven, so we got this roaster oven (see? I remembered.) so we could cook a turkey and then use the oven for side dishes, which is about all it will fit. Roaster oven. Roaster oven. Roaster oven.

Sorry for the confusion. (ponder a way to scurry away and hide, now)

I should probably go check on the food. Yeah, thats' it. The food.

Happy thanksgiving everyone, even if you're not celebrating it.

;)

Currently at home (and likely to stay there) with the creeping cruds - was out Monday and Tuesday with fever ranging upwards of 102(f), and while the fever is gone, the cruds remain, and I am again reminded of the fact that eucalyptus and menthol are soothing and yummy - tho' only when sick. And they don't blend well with Green&Black Maya Gold hot chocolate at all.

If I feel up to it, dinner tonight is Chicken Cordon Bleu (no turkey, because unexpected expenses left me high and dry on the money front). Family is pretty spread out - parental units are heading for San Diego in their RV, my brother is with friends for TGiving (we'll meet up this weekend to celebrate), and aunts & uncles far too far away for driving, so just me this year.

Not the best way to spend Thanksgiving, but quiet can be a refreshing change.

re 26:

"Turkey season!"
"Election theason!"
"Turkey season!"
"Election theason!"
"Election season!"
"I say it's turkey theason, and I thay VOTE!"

For logistical reasons, we are doing dinner on Saturday. So, today, I'm making Mormon funeral potatoes and cranberry relish; Chad's making turkey brine; we're cleaning and tidying; and then we're going to have some nice steaks and put scraps in the dog's bowl when she's not looking.

I'm actually really liking this. We get extra prep time, I get to conserve vacation time (since I took so much going to Japan this summer), and it just feels generally much more relaxed.

Happy Thanksgiving, those who celebrate it today, and have a nice Thursday, those who don't.

Kate Npveu @ 65... What are Mormon funeral potatoes?

In half an hour, leaving home for Pamela's mother's place, where we are having thanksgiving. Leaving so early because once I get there I have to make the stuffing, stuff the bird, and get it in the oven, in time for an early dinner.

I inherited turkey-roasting duties in that household the first time I was there for a turkey day, and my mother resigned from turkey roasting last year, so I am now the family turkey roaster. I'm extremely picky about the stuffing, so this works out for me; I get to do it my way.

Finally tried "brining" last year, and it was a big success, so we're doing it again.

I have never celebrated Thanksgiving, not really even the Canadian version. I think if you don't grow up with it, it doesn't cross your radar. It just bemuses me slightly.

It was lovely having you here last year though, and I'm glad you're having good company this year. We have snow, which is very nice, and AM is here again, and we're going to Quebec City for the weekend.

(I'm slightly relieved that Jim and Debra have enough good sense that having called one twin Pippin they didn't go the whole hog and call the other Meriadoc. I'm not sure I could quite have resisted that myself.)

My sister's coming. With just the two of us, I'm fixing a 5-lb turkey breast, herb stuffing, carrot and raisin salad, green beans, and homemade pumpkin pie. Some years we have baked potatoes instead of the stuffing. Neither of us likes gravy, and she's the only one who likes cranberry sauce, so we don't bother with those. Oh, and sparkling cider to go with the pie. The flavors complement each other perfectly.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it, and to everyone else, Happy Thursday.

Serge @ 66

Search Teresa's archives. I know it's in there somewhere.

I'm sorry to hear that, Miss Emma. Hope it's a nice quiet day.

Tom @27:

You're definitely not alone.

We're making the dreaded Staten Island crossing to south Jersey and the yearly ginormous cousin do. I'm bringing smoked salmon and tzatziki* and roasted garlic bread because I haven't gotten any cooking done this year so I bring that to everything.

*which always looks to me as if it's spelled wrong, and Google is not only no help but served me up the phrase "yogurt salsa" which makes me want to go lie down

Off to Mom's, along with my two sisters and their five children. Happy T-day to all!

About that cooking-time rule: I can kind of see where that 1.65 comes from (less than area), but the problem with taking the log in the first place, is that it implies there should be an added constant representing possible unit conversion.

That is, if you used kilograms instead of pounds, you ought to be able to fix that by adding 1.30 (80 minutes) to the time. Or to put it another way, a 2.2-fold gain in weight adds a fixed 80 minutes to the cooking time, regardless of what the original weight was. This seems odd to me....

Jo@#68: The reason we didn't name Alex "Meriadoc" is that we didn't name Pippin after the hobbit, we named her after my best buddy and bridesmaid and old SCA housemate Peregrynne (though we did normalize the spelling slightly.)

I'm sorry but roasting by weight instead of mass will produce an inferior Thanksgiving day feast. The Pilgrims always roasted by Mass.

The Revel Alliance is gathering and bringing their families' traditional dishes, and the families are from Louisiana, Georgia, Michigan and Puerto Rico, so it will be interesting. we all maintain that his is for the kids, so they can get in touch with their heritage, but it's really for the grownups. None of this stuff is Good For You (tm). Guaranteed.

Trailer Park Corn Casserole: Combine 1 can corn (drained), 1 can creamed corn, 1 box corn muffin mix, 1 stick butter (melted), 1 cup sour cream (the gourmet touch), 1 beaten egg (optional). Dump into 9-inch square baking dish, cake pan or 1-1/2 qt casserole and bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes, or until "done". Do not attempt with margarine and/or low fat sour cream, it just won't taste right.

This is not part of my Lutheran food tradition, but it sure is good.

I'm bringing my pumpkin pies, green jello with cottage cheese and pineapple, spiced apple rings, the aforementioned corn casserole, pineapple casserole, and brussels sprouts. Also, coquito, which is not part of my ethnic heritage either, but I thought I'd surprise Alex.

Pinapple Casserole: Combine 1 20-oz can pineapple chunks (drained, reserve juice), 3 Tbs flour, 3 Tbs pineapple juice, 1 stick melted butter, 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup sugar. Dump in greased casserole dish. Mix 1 sleeve Ritz crackers, crushed and melted butter and spread over top. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.

This was served at the Southeastern Medieval Association luncheon this year, and the "yankees" went wild over it.

Serge: Check funeral potatoes out, from 2003, here

P J... Tania... Thanks. It sounds yummy. Then again, potatoes were big on my diet when I was growing up. That's one thing I have in common with Liam Neeson, who said that, until he got involved with Helen Mirren during the filming of Excalibur, he was a meat & potato guy.

Visiting a friend in Minneapolis for my first Thanksgiving in six years. Brought my dogs. My (smart) poodle is having a blast, while my (not so smart) beagle is having a nervous breakdown.

Her recipe for turkey? Throw a frozen bird in a crock pot at 225 F and leave it there overnight. In the morning, tear it apart (the meat will be falling off the bone) so the meat is beneath the liquid level and let it sit until dinnertime. Season liberally at every opportunity. Works really well.

We're heading over to our ususal facility for Mass with the inmates around noon. Then over to my sister's place where my brother-in-law the frustrated chef will be setting out a splendid feed. No fog this morning so things should go fine.

I used to work for Foster Farms, the biggest poultry operation out here in the West. My work included supporting software for the quality assurance/customer service teams. This time of year, they staff the Turkey HelpLine, (800) 255-7227, around the clock today. We kept an informal list of the best calls which included:

• the guy that had split up with his girlfriend but wondered if the foil wrapped turkey and dressing she cooked last year that had been sitting at the back of his fridge ever since was still good
• a desperate call from someone who had managed to set their oven to locked "self-clean" after putting in the bird.

Liz Ditz @ 40: I am glad that things worked out for you, but I really would not like to repeat your story to the food safety folks.

I'm slightly relieved that Jim and Debra have enough good sense that having called one twin Pippin they didn't go the whole hog and call the other Meriadoc. I'm not sure I could quite have resisted that myself.

No, no, the other one's called Treebeard.

Isn't there a character in "Good Omens" called Pippin?

Oh, and Greg, you're not the only one with vocabulary problems. :) It looks like a crock pot to me, but I just checked and the words 'Roaster Oven' are clearly painted on the side of the massive thing.

We actually had our Thanksgiving a couple of weekends ago, since a shortage of vacation days this year made it necessary to choose between this weekend and Christmas for a long trip home, and Christmas won. So my mom and the in-laws came here for an early turkey-day observance; we got a 7-pound turkey breast that proved quite sufficient for five, as well as its subsequent necessary incarnations as turkey sandwiches, turkey stew, and turkey shepherd's pie. All of that having been dispatched at last a couple of days ago, it's a little weird having it be official Thanksgiving now.

So today we're going out to dinner at a nicer place than we'd normally go, with some of my wife's local family who we like very much. And then we're going to come home and watch Home for the Holidays and snuggle with our doggie and kitty, and feel very thankful indeed.

PS: Also my T-dinner will include my sisters' husbands... thoughtless of me.

Brooks @10:

I've hosted a couple of vegetarian Thanksgivings in the past, and I've found that traditional stuffing recipes (with appropriate ingredient adjustments like using veggie sausage, mushroom or other veggie broth, etc.) work astonishingly well with pretty much any stuffable vegetable: acorn or other winter squash, zucchini, eggplant.

I typically look up 'Stuffed [stuffable veggie]' in our trusty Fanny Farmer cookbook for cooking times and temps as a guideline, but apart from that mostly wing it.

Thanksgiving this year is in Medford, MA, instead of in our adopted homeland of Brooklyn. There will be seven of us, one vegetarian and one vegan, so only five turkey-eaters. The weather has smiled on us, so we are GRILLING the turkey! Which is still in its brine at the moment, and which will have amazing spice paste and butter rubbed under its skin.

My contributions have been veganized pumpkin brownies and chocolate espresso pecan pie -- haven't tasted it yet, but it looks fantastic.

Of most potential interest to ML folks is that we tried the new "foolproof pie crust" recipe in the recent Cooks' Illustrated. The main peculiar thing in the recipe is (a) that the fat gets thoroughly mushed into half the flour, then the other half of the flour gets cut into the mixture. (Rather than carefully cutting in the flour to leave small chunks of butter.)And (b) half the water is replaced with vodka, and there's a little more total liquid than I am accustomed to. The idea is that the vodka is 40% alcohol and 60% water, and the alcohol doesn't contribute to gluten development, but is wet and helps the dough roll out nicely.

I blind-baked the shell last night and it was gorgeous! It broke my head a little that the pie dough looked so crazy, but I would make it again if it turns out to taste as good as it looks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Making Light is one of the many things I am thankful for!

Suborning the other two local family members with a Tofurky. I've been curious about them for years, like some of the other products the company makes, and am not a cook beyond the basics. Which almost makes me sad today, because of all the tasty-sounding recipes posted above. Hmm, maybe I'll see if the friend I'm teaching to crochet will swap cooking lessons...

Yes, the Mormon funeral potatoes in that link. Neither Chad nor I like regular mashed potatoes, and the ones we made last year have enough onion that I don't think they'd be the same without it (onion gives me trouble at the moment). The classic ones only have a little, so we think they'll be safe without.

And now off to improvise homemade cranberry relish. Wish me luck . . .

Tracie, #75: The 1 stick melted butter -- does that really go in with the pineapple and cheese, or is it the butter that you mix with the Ritz crackers for the topping?

Gina, the boy and I will be here with our friends Drieux and Madmerle.

#79: wondered if the foil wrapped turkey and dressing she cooked last year that had been sitting at the back of his fridge ever since

I do have some sympathy -- I'm pretty good about ejecting ancient leftovers from my fridge, but in the course of moving house, I've been tossing out jarred spices that turned out to be older than some of the participants here!

Bryant Pond Maine, Mom, Sis, her husband (who loves to play clarinet, but isn't any good), one Nephew and his inamorata, two annoying brothers (in different ways), one with a Filipino lady friend (smart money says wedding announcement in the offing, possibly past-tense). Three sled dogs eager for leftovers who will be disappointed since we're going to the Bethel Inn for dinner (about a mile sfrom one of Mr. Macdonald's favorite movie theatres, 50 or so miles from Colebrook).
But there are pies here, a helically-sliced ham for the next few days, a ski mountain with lots of snow just a few miles away, more-annoying brother has a lead to a couple of months of contract work,and I don't need to be back to Massachusetts until Tuesday.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Kate Nepveu... Regular mashed potatoes? Bleh. Any other kind is fine.

We are playing host to a group of our friends, as we have for the past several years. The group has gone through some changes the past couple of years, but the tradition, happily, remains.

This is my second year in charge of the turkey, but it turned out well last year (I highly recommend the remote meat thermometer), and I will have expert advice on hand this time.

Last night I prepared the stuffing, the maple-rosemary butter for basting the turkey, the maple-allspice butter for sweet potatoes and squash, and the spiced cranberry sauce. Other people are managing veggies and bread and dessert. Apparently "dessert" includes a pecan-Drambuie pie.

Something tells me there's going to be a great deal of thanks-giving in this house this year.

We're going to my parents. We'll be greatly missing my grandparents who are feeling too old to go out.

Last night I made a large gravenstein apple & cranberry galette, and a gluten-free apple crisp. And I washed a lot of beets. Now I need to cook up the beets for making into a salad.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, wherever you may be.

I'm getting psyched up to cook my second turkey (and first Yanksgiving turkey), and considering fixing the giblets for the cats. Not that the furry little monsters will appreciate it.

While I was googling around last night trying to find a recipe similar to the one I used last time, I did find something I wanted to share: instructions for cooking a frozen turkey. It looks easier (and probably safer) than quick-thaw methods.

Bill @ 41:

I'm staying home with the three kids. If the weather holds, brats and burgers on the grill.

David @ 83:

Also my T-dinner will include my sisters' husbands.

I'm sensing a pattern here, and it's not pretty.

We're having a Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon with a turkey bought from HomeBaked Ham (there is a reason for this, and it's actually a very good one). My mother-in-law has driven us away from the kitchen and is fully in charge. Me? I just made breakfast.

David Harmon

I have some whole nutmegs (in a glass jar; they're still fragrant) that my grandmother moved in 1974. They aren't older than me, but they're old enough to give people pause. (Some of the other spices are inherited, too, but they seem to be holding up well in airtight containers.)

(I keep some fossils on magnets on the fridge, so I can have stuff on the fridge that's older than anything inside the fridge. When you have sourdough starter, you have to think really old objects!)

I plan to go to the barn and take the horse out for a Thanksgiving gallop, if the outdoor arena's dry enough. Then, later this afternoon, we're going to our friends' house to stuff ourselves. Since the 20 year old son is driving (he interns on their magazine/publishing projects and knows the Best Ways to get there), we'll be free to indulge safely in every way...

John Arkansawyer @ 96... This reminds me I should consider watching Soylent Green tonight, what with this being Turkey Day.

I can't be the only one wondering if David Harmon @ 83 PS: Also my T-dinner will include my sisters' husbands... thoughtless of me. intends to cook his sisters' husbands...

Am somewhere in suburban Minneapolis, at my sister's house, chasing my niece and nephew around the living room and generally having a grand time. Joy.

Greg London, your "crock pot" doesn't sound like this thing, but it's close.

That's a 1950s roaster which has fallen out of use recently due to a faulty cord I need to replace. The sucker uses 1335 watts of electricity (I looked it up once).

We've gotten in the habit of buying the dinner from Safeway (10-12 lb bird, pie, mashpot, stuffing, whole cranberry sauce, rolls) and augmenting it with peas&onions and sweet potatoes. We'll be doing that again this afternoon.

David @ 90: Are they by any chance in the old Cain's round screwtop plastic containers? I'd love those containers.

xeger @ 101: Jinx! (Do I have the usage right? I've never done that before.)

Dear TG hotline: I'm having my sister's husbands for Thanksgiving, but they are still frozen. What should I do?

It's amazing how simple Thanksgivng dinner is when you're cooking for 3.5 people. My husband is allergic to most of the traditional accoutrements, and the kids are suspicious of anything uncanny.
So it's not really a whole lot different from 'dinner' as usually served, except for dessert of tarts, apple and pumpkin.

I have to dissent from Mr. Singer's algorithm, because we can do this vastly better emprically. The correct way to cook a turkey involves a probe thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast. Cook until 161F, remove, cover, let rest for 15 minutes, uncover, carve.

In my experience, this results in a 15lbs. turkey cooking in 2.5 hours, Mr. Singer's algorithm would result in coal. I suspect the core difference is the stuffing, or lack thereof, of the turkey, but there are a number of input variables that are unspecified. For example, oven temp. (I start at 475F for 30 minutes, then drop to 350F. I suspect this is closer to 500F and 375F, I should recalibrate at some point. Alton Brown's foil Turkey Tent also features in the proceedings. Matter of fact, his entire Turkey Process is a very effective way to make a *very* good turkey.

The thermometer method automagically adjusts for a number of initial conditions. Given that probe thermometers -- with alarms! -- cost less than $20, it's best to forget any rule of thumb and let that particular turkey tell you when that particular turkey.

Technology. It's a lovely thing.

Whoa... I just had a brain fart when looking at the graph, and thought "Tukey on Turkey: cool". Then I remembered it's Tufte, Tukey's pal.

The figure, while well executed, would probably have several elements eliminated if Tufte had a hand in it.

Just reading this thread has gotten me mouth-wateringly hungry.

Off to a mutual friend's in CT very shortly, bearing with me the gift of pumpkin fudge. Wish the Doyle-Macdonald crowd a happy Turkeyday for me (-:

We're not hosting Thanksgiving for the first time in a long while. For the very first time, our younger son and our very-soon-to-be daughter-in-law* are cooking the bird for us and her parents. This should be interesting, the kids are vegetarian** but loathe the idea of tofurkey.

* three weeks and counting
** not vegan, We're not vegetarian; our turkey is slowly thawing in the refrigerator for tomorrow.

The figure, while well executed, would probably have several elements eliminated if Tufte had a hand in it.

True enough. But while Tufte is inspiring, I tend to follow Bill Cleveland for practical details. The light gridlines and all-round tickmarks are there deliberately, given the purpose of the figure -- you explicitly want to read from one axis to the other. Although, looking at it now, if I hadn't been in a rush this morning I would've remembered to have the y-axis read "Cooking Time in Hours at 325F" instead of just "Cooking Time in Hours."

It's been three years since I've had a proper Thanksgiving dinner, what with me having moved to Finland in 2005. I had an American friend who'd come over for a year of university help me make a nice little spread that year, but last year I was sadly deprived. This year I was determined to have a proper dinner again, even if it meant serving it near midnight because the other half works evenings.

I went so far as to pay the whopping four euros for a can of pumpkin at the import store in Helsinki. Turns out I should've went and spent that much for a pie crust as well, as mine has done... interesting things. The storebought roll-yourself slid down the pan when I tried to blind bake it; so did my homemade crust (which also looks like it's going to be as tough as an old boot). I thought I knew what I was doing. Oops! I stuck most of the filling in the mutant pie crust anyway and it's currently cooling and smelling very nice--if nothing else, we can scrape the pumpkin yumminess from the crust when we eat it. I'll get more pie crust tomorrow and make mini pies with the rest of the filling.

I used up all of the rest of the flour on the rolls and could have used still more, but they're rising fine and about to go in the oven. Just a little pork roast (turkey? Alas, no, not unless I want it in breast form only) and mashed potatoes left to cook... *sob*

In all seriousness, it's been frantic but not too horrible (and I've learned an important lesson with pie crusts). I'm sure I'll do it all again next year, since my homesickness has been too strong for me to go on ignoring beloved traditions. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford visiting my family more than once every three or four years.

Oh, and since we'