Thanksgiving week: part two begins now

 Time for an admission: I've done fifty years of Thanksgiving turkeys (with only a couple of missed ones in there) and I have never brined that bird. Oh, one year I did a half-assed job of salting it ahead of the baking, but I'd neglected some key components to that process so it hardly counts. It's not that I don't believe in brining, it's just that my turkey is never there, sitting in the fridge days in advance, ready to be bathed in something wonderful and aromatic. It's either defrosting still, or it's waiting to be picked up fresh from the fields where it once roamed. I don't have room for a big bird to sprawl out on a whole shelf of the fridge. So, I skip that step and try to compensate by doing everything else I can to make the bird come out with the right degree of doneness, crispness and juciness. As one writer said -- the whole turkey roasting project is one big headache and the result is rarely perfect. Were it faultless, you'd do it again the very same way next year. But no, here we are, wasting our time trying something new, hoping to improve at the margins what you supposedly perfected the year before. (Read the article in WashPo. I laughed hard. It's funny because it's true.)

So on this beautiful November morning...

... I take out the turkey I purchased at the farmers market (I think I got the Blue Valley Farms one, but I'm not sure) and I set it in a brine bath of buttermilk, bay leaves, sugar, salt, roasted peppercorns, and cayenne. Of course, I don't have a brine bag, so I'm willing my garbage bag to do the job nicely. The turkey is 14.5 lbs and the recipe for this year's bird is from the NYT. (It's the slow roasted one with apple gravy, as developed by Padma Lakshmi.) I have to use NYT recipes in abundance, because I splurged and bought the paper's cooking pages (and extra couple of dollars per month) and I am determined to not have wasted my money on their food preparation wisdoms.

It takes a while to brine the turkey. Why? Because the darn bird us big and it leaves a trail of juices on the counter and in the sink and if you're obsessive like I am about poultry bacteria, you'll scrub everything ten times afterwards so as to decontaminate everything. But, on the upside, the bird is now bathing and I found a bowl large enough to contain the bird in the garbage bag, buttermilk and spices included. (I think Ed was properly horrified to see me pour buttermilk mixture into a garbage bag, but I assured him it would not go to waste, though honestly, I don't know that this is true. If the bird is just 95% perfect, that will be no better no worse than last year's bird, which was good enough without 2.5 quarts of buttermilk going into the effort.)

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop, who had pajama day at school today.

In the evening, the kids are all home, doing what they usually do.

(Snowdrop likes company for homework)

And even later, I am back home, vaguely keeping tabs on all that I have to do before the big day.  I've done it enough times that I know it always does come together in the end in some shape or form. Always. And if it's not all perfect, well, you can improve on it the next year or the year after.

Thanksgiving week: catch your breath

On this Monday, my holiday week is on recess break. I vaguely consider cooking the cranberries, but there's more room in the fridge drawer where they reside than on the fridge shelves where the turkey hogs much of what's available, so I let that idea slip by. Besides, it's a cold but beautiful day...

(Breakfast with Dance who likes to sit by my plate, much to Ed's disappointment. I ignore her, she comes anyway. That's okay - Ed's reach is long.)

 

And, too, I have a Zoom party with my Polish friends. Both the weather and the get-together require that I turn away from what's in the kitchen and instead take in a few deep breaths of the Great Outdoors and, too, practice my underused these months social skills with my pals.

Where do Ed and I walk? Oh, just our local park. But the crispy clear air! And the view of the setting sun (we put the walk off that late into the day)! -- sublime.

I'll return to the turkey and company tomorrow. Today, I take a pause.

Thanksgiving week: four days before, and one day after

We'd stayed up late into the night piling on stories that you cant ever fully review in the course of a busy week. It's heaven to have such leisure with your grownup kids. It leads me to push Ed again on the subject of finishing the construction of the writers shed. Once the second grandchild is born to the Chicago family, it will be a tight squeeze in the two bedroom farmhouse. Ed, of course, is anything but keen on the idea of undertaking a construction project of that magnitude. Nonetheless, we toss around the idea periodically until it fizzles. And then comes back again. 

 

This morning, aka "the morning after" began when Primrose, our youngest visitor from Chicago, nudged us to get up and get on with the day.

We had a quick breakfast of left-over croissants...

We played. Or, more accurately, she played for us.

But very quickly, the young family had to go off on their round of visits: old high school friend, my mother...  

By noon, they were back again and Primrose and I took a walk to the barn to search for eggs.

At the house, they read books, I fix a frittata.

This cheeper egg dish is such a farmhouse staple that really, I could do one with eyes closed. Today's had tatsoi, leeks and mushrooms. And of course, a small mountain of Farmer John's cheese.

And yes, it did feel like the day after Thanksgiving. There was left over pie, there were chicken bones to shuffle around in the fridge (waiting for Ed to turn into a soup). To top it off, I did my first Christmassy thing: I brought out four candles I had purchased from different candle makers (each claiming to provide a whiff of the quintessential holiday smell of pine). They voted which was the most authentically Christmassy. (Brooklyn Candles, appropriately called "Christmas tree.")

 

 

 

And then they had to leave. The next time I see them, the family will have grown (or be in the throes of growing!). 

My Thanksgiving holiday with them has ended, even as the second Thanksgiving, the one with the rest, is still in its earliest stage.

In the meantime, just to tie these days together, in the evening, Snowdrop, Sparrow and Sandpiper, along with parents, come over for supper. So much to review! (Do you love this as much as we do? Reliving the best moments by rehashing them at least one extra time?) 

Toward the end of the evening, my daughter picks up a book I had left for future perusal. Snowdrop noticed. And that's how we then moved to an hour where my daughter did a masterful job of explaining an important chapter of American history.

Dishes done, families back at their homes, and me, I'm now on the couch with Ed. Feet up. Definitely feet up. And I keep thinking that we are one lucky family. We have each other.

 

With love.

Thanksgiving week: all in the family

So much to this day! Our Thanksgiving gathering continues, even as it has to be still not entirely in the way that it would have been before the pandemic. With one super pregnant daughter and two unvaccinated little kids from different households and both attending schools, we are not yet ready to all sit down around a table inside. Nonetheless, we can do so much! And it seems this glorious weekend we do it all. 

Let's break it down a little:

The morning of the sleepover -- Primrose, here, from Chicago.

 

(Every child here has loved every single toy food here. Primrose is no exception.)

(Heading out)

Going to Madison Sourdough bakery with grandma.

Meet up with cousins and aunt and uncle at the Arboretum. With pain au chocolat.

Primrose is reunited with mom and dad.

(A hike)

The whole gang.

The four grandkids: Sandpiper is astonished.

The four grandkids: Sandpiper is delighted.

Back at the farmhouse now: preparing Thanksgiving dinner number one: my prep starts with the pie. Melissa Clark-- your advice was great. Pie, loaded with nearly four pounds of honeycrisp apples, spiced with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, is delicious.

Primrose paints.

Her talent is obvious.

Predinner snacks.

A hug for little sister.

The threesome, or maybe we should start saying foursome?

The chicken, stuffed with wild mushrooms and sage.

Getting the meal going...

And now it's almost midnight, but I'm hanging on to my last moments with my youngest girl and her husband before things get crazy busy for all of us.

A beautiful day. I am so full of gratitude and love...

Thanksgiving week

It begins today for us. Thanksgiving week. Much has to be accomplished! I'll bypass the explanations and concentrate on a pictorial message: of time with family in funny, and reliably familiar, sometimes convoluted, always wonderful ways.

"Family? We're a family too, no? Just a chicken family!"

Let's stick with the people family.

On a very pretty November day, where not all the leaves have left the trees yet!

Breakfast is a muddle. With Ed. Without Ed. Then with him again. It's complicated.

The task for this morning is to start in on Melissa Clark's apple pie. I'm sure one million Americans are making Melissa Clark's apple pie this Thanksgiving (she's the food person at the NYT), because she actually has a novel suggestion and after you've been baking for many years, you get excited when someone says something new about a standard dish. (And what could be more standard here then apple pie, right?) Her suggestion? Cook up the spiced apples before putting them into the pie shell. It will keep the crust from getting soggy. 

 

So, I precooked and pre-made the shell, to be baked tomorrow, so that it's bubbly hot and fragrant for our family feast number one.

The goal then was to pick up Snowdrop at school, deliver her home, and return to the farmette where the young Chicago family should be arriving. Good goal. Impossible to realize. For the first time EVER, I sat on the Beltline Highway for close to an hour, stuck in a traffic jam created by an accident up ahead. Instead of being first in line to pick up Snowdrop, I was last in line. Luckily, the first graders are picked up in a shorter line, so I wasn't terribly late. 

Quick, Snowdrop, here's your fruit snack! We're going home!

Bye, see you tomorrow! Turn around, drive back to the farmette where.... drum roll ....

... the young family has arrived.

The goal is for the parents to go off alone for a last overnight before the arrival of you know who. (Primrose will stay with us at the farmhouse.)

Once they leave, Primrose and I concentrate on serious play. It always involves dress up. Always that puffy dress pulled over her usual clothing. And eventually she settles in to do art. She has her mother's talent  and the ability to concentrate on her design until every last little space is filled in.

In the evening, we do the usual.

Like Sparrow, she insists that she no longer needs the booster seat.

Tradition has it that there will be popcorn and a movie after dinner. Tradition also has it that the movie viewing is a mess of trying to bring up a film that refuses to stream. And thus tradition has it that the sleepover child goes to bed very very late.

And so does her grandma. And that's not unusual either. However old I am, I still like to stay up nearly as late as Ed. Well, maybe not until 3 or 4 in the morning. After all, I have a little one who is bound to wake up just about the time the rooster starts crowing.