things I didn't know

The weekend before Thanksgiving is always one of making lists, sorting through recipes, taking the time to muse about past holidays, thinking ahead to how this one might play out.

I'm in a food-ish mood this year. Ina Garten may be posting up and down that this is the year for "easy," but that's not my thinking. I don't want hard, but I want intensely fresh and honest. So I read a lot on what to add, what to repeat. I have a really ancient book on Thanksgiving from Williams Sonoma and it is stuffed with papers and clippings from recipes that I have deemed worthy over the decades. 

All this is rather nostalgic. Lovely, really. Favorites will be repeated. Traditions preserved. 

One more glance at a Thanksgiving Q and A in the Washington Post. Ha! Here's the question that stumped me for many years: when to defrost a frozen bird. Of course I started in too late my first years of turkey roasting. Of course! I was one of those that called the turkey hotline. Help me out here, guys! My bird is hard as a rock! And I would run water baths and do all the tricks and I panicked that in the end, the turkey only appeared unfrozen -- that bits of ice still nestled inside, only to be discovered by a Thanksgiving guest who would then get sick from eating undercooked meat. All that worry for nothing! Today I read that you can actually roast a frozen bird and it will come out just fine: you only need to double the roasting time. Who knew!!!!

My bird this year will be plenty unfrozen though. 

What is frozen right now is the land all around us. And the chickens are miffed: no-one likes a cold stomping space. Too, the Bresse hens are incredible foragers. This is a difficult task when nothing looks tasty out there.

Over breakfast, Ed and I talk about roosters. Should we buy one?

My guy has this (crazy) idea that we should get a Bresse rooster and hatch our own Bresse chickens and yes, maybe try to eat the meat that is purported to be so delicious. I think he's been watching too many Just a Few Acres videos. I do not see us smacking our lips over our own hens. Hypocritical? Sure, but also realistic. I know us too well.

And lo, there is a Bresse rooster for sale. But the owner will only part with him if we take the two Bresse girls along with the cockerel. That would give us a total of ten chickens.

Ten chickens? Do we really want to have ten chickens roaming the farmette lands, crowding the coop, digging up my spring flowers?

We spend a good while on this and we come to no resolution.

Meanwhile, I pick up my veggie bag from the Farmers Unite drop off point. We alternate between partly cloudy skies and snow squalls all day long. I'm in the thick of a cloudburst now and it is beautiful! (I pull up the car by the lake, just to soak in the prettiness of it all...)

Less "beautiful" is the biting wind that's also with us this weekend. Ed and I volley the ball of going for a walk: we should go, he'll say. He hasn't been out walking since he fell ill last weekend. Okay, a little later, I'll respond. And then -- we should go soon, this time from me. Back and forth like this, all the way until the sun is about to set.

And we do go out and it is cold but it is also invigorating and very lovely, in the way that only a winter walk at sunset can be.

I do mumble something about the unfairness of this Arctic air, coming as it does a full month before the official beginning of winter, but, on the other hand, it does get us in the mindset of a cold season. You remember to pack good mittens and a warm cap into your jacket pocket. And to wear warm shoes. And you so appreciate returning home to a warm farmhouse. 

Bresse eggs for supper. The new girls are laying regularly, despite the cold. Big girls, big eggs. We are grateful.