Thanksgiving

So thankful... So much love and kindness all around me, so much care and compassion... And on top of it all -- good food on the table.

Oh dear. No food on the table as of this morning. Not even close. Do people eat Thanksgiving dinner early? Yes? Hmmm.... Oh dear.

Well, let's start with a greeting to the animals great and small. In the barn.

Now, about breakfast: a quick drive to the Batch bakery for a pie and for cinnamon buns and apple cake.

At home, cut up the fruit, roast up the bacon, and we are ready.

Family comes.

Gaga, look what I made for dessert (all by herself)!

Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is on in the background. Some watch, some play.

Quick, I have to get the herbal mayo prepped, the beans trimmed, the ginger minced, the cranberries cooked, and the muffins baked. All before lunch. Sandpiper helps. 

(I pause when Santa comes to town... along with Mrs Claus...)

The little guy is full of energy. This is when a saunter outside makes sense.

Snowdrop joins him.

Did someone say it's time for lunch? I asked my son in law to be in charge of that. And he was. I mean, he is. Uff! I'm distracted! Sandpiper, do not turn the oven on just yet!

Okay, pause for lunch...

Followed by a little bit of a quiet time. The youngest guy naps, the middle one plays, the older girl reads with mommy.

And I'm back with the dinner: let's get the turkey broth going. Where is that back bone? And the neck? A few veggies? Cook away, broth!

Next -- let's peel and slice the potatoes on  the mandolin. Not the safest gadget in the world given that I lost the safety glove, but oh well. Just watch those fingers so they dont get sliced with the spuds. 

Oops, I lose a bit of pinky and it wont stop bleeding. Many many bandages later, I continue.

What else, what else. I should prepare the root veggies. And set the table. Yes, done!

So now for the bird. Smear on the herbed mayo!

Looks kind of gross, but I trust Kenji the chef!

Is it time for a pre dinner drink yet??

Yes? Terrific! A Campari based spritzer. Yum. Pinky finger feels better already!

Bird goes in. 

Potatoes go in. But not here. They go into the little oven at the sheep shed. I only hope it's still working. No one uses it. Except for Thanksgiving overflow. Cross your fingers for these guys!

Corn. My daughter is to make the corn. I set her up for it. Away she goes!

I tackle the gravy. Have I forgotten something? I do not think so! One year I forgot the cranberries, another year -- I left a whole dish of something in the fridge. (What was that something? I forgot.) But this year, we're good!

Out comes the turkey.

It rests, I work quickly on the gravy, Ed brings back the potatoes, I finish off the beans. 

The corn's ready. The beets and carrots have roasted themselves, not needing anyone's help ever. The gravy is always a bit of a bother, but hey, that's Thanksgiving for you: it needs that extra push at the last minute.

And now to carve the bird.

And we sit down to eat.

"I love every last bit of it!"

Wait, have I forgotten the dessert? The one I did not make? Actually the two I did not make? One is from the bakery, the other contributed by Snowdrop, who then insists on cutting and serving.

And just like that, it ends. Beautifully. Around the kitchen table. On mismatched plates and with some participants choosing to use fists over forks. Still, every minute of it is beautiful.

I hope you had an exquisitely wonderful day. I hope everything went well and you felt the closeness of family, perhaps friends. The weekend is young! May your joy extend well into it, as ours will with the arrival of the youngest family tomorrow.

Happy, happy Thanksgiving days.

With love.

big birds, little birds

It's hard to believe that practically the entire morning went to the birds, but it's the truth! 

No, not the littlest guys. These kept on chirping and diving for berries and asserting their territory in the high branches of the crab apple. Lovely to watch (especially from behind very clean kitchen windows!).

But we did spend a good chunk of time trying to deal with the hiccuping Bresse chicken. We picked up her sister, just to compare.

Then we went after the girl that's in trouble. That was tough. She'd run from one end of the coop to the next and we could not reach her. 

Finally, cornered, she gave up the flight.

Ed held her, we both studied her throat with a flashlight. Nothing obvious.

We felt her front. I was sure I felt the impacted crop. A big bulge in her lower throat. Ed was less convinced. Seems like that's just the neck...

Nevertheless, we rubbed and mushed and massaged and honestly, I'm not sure we helped her at all, but we are without other ideas. Take your chicken to a vet -- you'll say. This is not an easy task. Most vets don't treat single chickens and ones that do aren't exactly standing by, waiting for you to pop in the day before Thanksgiving with a hiccuping bird.

For now, we let her go. She's processing food and so she can't be fully backed up. And hey, the lice situation seems under control on the birds we randomly checked. (Where do they get lice? From other birds. These are avian lice, not interested in your scalp or mine. Thank goodness.)

Breakfast: back to oatmeal. Feeling a tad guilty for abandoning it for more tasty stuff the last few weeks.

And now is the time to get started on the big bird. He is still a little icy under the wings and thighs, but good enough! And very pretty.

In these local farm raised birds, you need to tidy up bits of feathers and anything else that may be less than tasty. Once that's done, it's time for me to spatchcock the guy. This, I think, is the toughest part of the Thanksgiving prep: you take out your good knife (and we dont't really have, nor want a good knife, because we've grown fond of working with our bad ones -- Ed sharpens them regularly and they serve our needs well) and you work through the bones to carve out the back bone (which will be used to make stock tomorrow, only because I don't have time today). Once that's out, you flip the bird and flatten it with your fist. In the end, it looks sort of like this:

(Thank you, Mark Bittman of the NYTimes, for teaching me this method of roasting a bird. It's the one surefire way of getting the breast and the dark meat to come out done at the same time.)

I salt it well to dry brine it overnight in the fridge. I still have the roasting mayo to prepare. That's J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's secret to preparing a Thanksgiving bird. Kenji is an American chef, cookbook author, and food writer (and winner of prestigious awards for incorporating science into his cooking methods) and I trust him to know more about preparing a Thanksgiving meal than I will ever know, even though in my life, I have probably prepared upwards of forty complete Thanksgiving dinners.

For now though, I take a break. Yes, with cookies and coffee..

...but, too, Ed and I drive out to take a hike in a place he's wanted to explore for a long while now, even as I never seem to have the time for it. It's the Hauge Historic District Park (near the town of Perry, Wisconsin). The park surrounds The Hauge Log Church (which is a historic site), but perhaps more importantly, it is on the second highest ridge in our county, giving you remarkable views over the Driftless Area. You possibly know that a good portion of western Wisconsin (and bits of southern Minnesota, eastern Iowa and northern Illinois) was not covered by the last glacier. Blame our highlands to the north and the Great Lakes for stopping the ice flow! Thus this pocket of the Upper Midwest does not have the "drift" that a receding glacier leaves behind. There's lots more to be said about what is in fact here instead, but this goes beyond the scope of a post titled "big birds, little birds." 

The drive here is lovely, and the view? Well, it is said to offer the best sunset in all of Dane County. We're a bit too early for that and we cant really linger for it because of our chicken worries (dusk brings out the predators), nevertheless, everything about this area is deeply peaceful. It's where you really want to be on the day before a Thanksgiving holiday, when the world is cracking up around you and you're feeling like the human race is a bit out of control in so many pockets of this beautiful planet.

(the Hauge Log Church, standing at the center of the park, was built in 1852 by Norwegian immigrants)

(we looked inside...)

(the cemetery stones reflect the presence of Norwegians here in the 19th century)

(the park views? awesome...)

(looking back at the church...)

(to the west -- the nearly setting sun...)

(selfie!)

We return by way of our favorite Thai eatery. Take out food at last! 

You could say I am already behind the cooking schedule for tomorrow's meal. But, the bird is nearly ready for the oven, the other stuff is in my head, ready to be prepped. Tomorrow. Plenty of time in one day to do a big meal. Right?? 

Meanwhile, if you are celebrating the day of Thanksgiving, I hope with all my heart that you have a beautiful one.

With lots of love...

Tuesday's chicken woes

It was to be a house cleaning day. I look around this morning. Is the farmhouse really in great need of a major scrubbing? Maybe a little dusting and vacuuming. Okay. In a little while. First, I need to look in on the cheepers and the cats.

(some of them, enjoying the sunshine...)

(cat, enjoying the sunshine...)

And this sets us into a day-long chicken spiral of issues. It starts with me noting that one of the Bresse girls has the hiccups. She's had them for a couple of days. This morning, she doesn't want to come down for breakfast. That's not good!

Initially, Ed is not worried. We search the internet for clues. She may have a cold or a parasite or she may have eaten a toxic something or other. In other words, it could be anything! Still, she's looking robust and otherwise healthy. Ed, did you say raising chickens is easy? Really? There are so many things that can disturb the peace in the coop! For now, we're just keeping an eye on her. I mean, maybe she just has some hiccup analogue (chickens cannot have real hiccups because they do not have diaphragms and hiccups are spasms of the diaphragm). She sounds weird, but maybe it's innocuous.

Still, why is she breathing through an open beak?

I go inside to fix breakfast. I bake blueberry muffins. Every day Snowdrop asks for them. Time to indulge the little girl. And us.

And, too, I start in on a balsam fir candle. Here's my thinking: the one in this jar has a burn life of 76 hours. After Thanksgiving, nothing is better than a faint whisper of pine and balsam in your house. This one surely will carry us through the week. Time to start it now. 

Now, did someone say house cleaning? I start in on the dusting. Ed will vacuum floors tomorrow. I'm hitting the walls and ceiling today. I'd done that once when Ed was away sailing, so it shouldn't be too big a job.

That's when I notice the windows. We didn't wash them this spring. It shows. Now, on the one hand -- I can bet that no one stopping by this Thanksgiving weekend will notice. Thanksgiving brings with it its own preoccupations and they do not include staring at smudged up windows. Still, we have a half a dozen large glass panes in the kitchen, plus the patio door, and none of these are looking good. Once you notice the splatter and the smudges, you can't stop looking at them. 

Ed, my darling, I have an idea...

You want to wash the windows, don't you.... 

He washes on the outside, I work on the inside. And it does take a while, but in my eyes, the result is worth it. 

Kitchen windows -- done. 

[While working on the windows I notice that the oven could use a major wipe down as well, but honestly, doing that before roasting a turkey is like sweeping the porch floor before the kids come in from the beach, sandy feet and all. Of course, perhaps vacuuming the house before the kids come to play here Thursday is equally pointless, but there is something deeply satisfying about having a house that's clean and ready for a big celebration!]

And now it is time to pick up the little girl and bring her to the farmette. 

(Snowdrop, enjoying the sunshine...)

A very quick moment outside. Snowdrop is anxious to hit the blueberry muffins. And spice cookies. And chips and fruits and all those other staples of her afternoon here.

In the evening, Ed is just coming in from the barn as I pull in. Not good, he tells me. They have lice.

In trying to figure out what's wrong with the hiccuping Bresse girl, he poked around everywhere -- looking down her throat, feeling her abdomen, checking her out carefully with his magnifying speckles. Lice. It's what you would call an incidental finding, nothing to do with the hiccup or the shallow breathing.

More research follows. We actually have the powder you need to dust them with to clear the lice (living on the farmette, you have such stuff!). So, my chicken healer returns to the barn and takes out one hen at a time to douse each with the powder that will be the first treatment out of several.

But this isn't the end of it. In looking down her throat and feeling her body, Ed was able to give a best guess as to what's troubling the hiccuping Bresse girl. Impacted crop -- he tells me with some degree of conviction. We need to massage that buildup in her crop and have her spit it out. Otherwise, she will choke or die from malnourishment.

So that's the project for tomorrow morning. For now, we wash up super thoroughly and sit down to supper.

We're still working through Sunday's leftovers. Amazing how you can wilt spinach, toss in a few mushrooms, fix up a salad, dice up thin slivers of beauty heart radishes and add it all to a leftover crunchy chicken breast and have yourself a credible meal. 

House looks pretty good.Cutting, brining, cooking start tomorrow. Right after we massage the gut of the Bresse girl. It will be such an interesting day-before-Thanksgiving!

 

Monday of Thanksgiving week

Were I baking for the big Thursday meal, I'd be at it today. But I have long given up on that effort, limiting myself to cranberry cornmeal muffins, which I bake fresh on Thursday.

Let's talk about Thanksgiving foods: did you know that Wisconsin produces more cranberries than any other state, by far? Last year we harvested more than 4 million barrels. Many people think Massachusetts is number one in this. Ha! They didn't even bring in half that amount! And here's another fact to remember this Thanksgiving: Indigenous Americans picked wild cranberries for food (and for dyes and medicines). Insofar as Thanksgiving is a holiday that celebrates early eating traditions in this country, cranberries, and corn, and turkeys (well, wild turkeys) -- these should most certainly grace your table. Sweet potatoes and green beans are native to Central and South America. They were brought up north by Native Indians, so these, too, are a truly American food. Apple pie on the other hand -- you know, as American as apple pie? -- not so much. It originated in England. But you're good with pecan pie! Pecans are of the Americas.

Our own Thanksgiving meal has many of the traditional core ingredients, though I give them modern adaptations. So, turkey, but spatchcoked and brined, green beans but with ginger and garlic, corn -- with chilies for the grownups, potatoes -- a mix of sweet and russet, roasted in a cheese sauce, cranberries, but with oranges, more roasted veggies that actually originate in Central Asia and the Mediterranean regions, and lastly -- those cranberry corn muffins, ones that rely on the availability of buttermilk. And hold on to your hat Hannah -- for dessert? Not apple, not pecan, but chocolate cream pie, which, I'm sorry, but is soooo French in origin that you have to wonder how it ever made its way to our Thanksgiving meal. 

One has to remember that Thanksgiving is many things to many people, though we all, I hope, share in the belief that it is of gratitude and humility and kindness, over foods that traditionally have brought us together on this day.

Okay, but I am running ahead of myself. Today, is also memorable because we crossed over the freezing point. Arctic blast -- over and done with for now.

Chickens -- happy.

Breakfast -- lovely.

We talk about chickens once again. Our Bresse farmer will have roosters to sell in February. We will wait. I have some trepidation about our girls being without a hefty, protective guy all winter long, but on the other hand, Happy never seemed too devoted to his job of keeping the flock in tact. He just seemed happy to be around some of them some of the time. Perhaps gentle roosters aren't well suited to the task of keeping a stern grip on the hens and keeping intruders away from them. And we definitely want a gentle rooster. 

Walk -- accomplished.

We go to our park. The pond is nearly frozen, but all this will change: the snow will melt, the pond will unfreeze this week. We're in for some decently Novermberish weather for the next few days.

And Snowdrop -- picked up at school as usual, brought to the farmhouse as usual.

Though today she passed on outdoor play. Hungry for gingerbread cookies maybe?

In the evening Ed and I eat leftovers. Thanksgiving week is one with lots of leftovers -- before, because you don't feel like cooking much, and after, because turkeys are big. Even when they're small, they're big! 

Do I start cooking tomorrow? Nope. Tomorrow is clean the house day. After that -- I wont leave the kitchen until dawn breaks over a Friday horizon! (Okay, I exaggerate.)

with love...

Sunday

We all have weird passions and hobbies, right? Right?? I mean, there are ones we readily admit to: reading, listening to music, doing art, looking at art, fly fishing, sports -- all kinds of sports, you name it, we're proud to do them, watch them, follow them. These are all what you would regard as normal leisure time activities.

Then there are ones that are just off the wall nuts and still, we love them! Ed, wanting to learn farming comes close to this. But I'm thinking of one that I have had, ever since I was old enough to grab an AAA book (and later Frommers, and Lonely Planet, and still later internet sites too numerous to mention): I love to search out places to stay for forthcoming trips. 

I just love doing it and frankly, I don't know why. I used to be the wee one in the back seat during family roadtrips thumbing through AAA guides until I would get so car sick that my head would spin and my stomach would churn and still, I kept at it. There's a good motel within our price range in about forty miles and they say it has a pool! It's supposed to be "charming! And "attractively furnished!"

Of course, I learned early on that such searches are often futile and result in crashes and disappointments. I used to put in requests in the mail for brochures ahead of a big trip. Well now, glossy brochures can be... misleading. I refined my search skills and learned how to be discriminating in what I read. Words like "nearby" became red flags. Give it to me in kilometers, buddy! "With a view" was laughable. If it has a window, it has a view. And if one room has a lovely view, it doesn't mean that you're going to get it. Unless you begged. I begged.

When the Internet become the common source of information, I juggled descriptions, readers comments, blog accounts, tourist platforms -- all of it. And still, sometimes the place didn't feel exactly right. [One reason why I always stay in the same hotel in Paris is because if I started searching again, I'd go through all the incumbent angst that comes with these searches. Am I missing something? With my sweet Parisian place, I know everything about it first hand. Search no longer needed.]

Ed says I just like reading about hotels, which I know sounds really weird. But he is only partly right. I dont especially like doing searches for other travelers, in much the same way that I didn't really love cooking at a restaurant. Too big a responsibility to figure out the preferences and peccadillos of others. I once remember picking an especially nice room in a hotel for my mom and she complained that the AC blew air right onto her bed all night. You just cant tell when you'll fail to please. You may want the view, another may not give a hoot about the view but will die if the room has inadequate circulation. 

All this to say that we had a very very cold night, but that was then, because today the sun came out and we are slowly starting to warm up, which means I should go for a walk with Ed, but no! I don't do that. I stay inside most of the day looking for a hotel for a trip I will be taking sometime next year.

Bizarre.

Yes, yes, I took care of animals in the morning.

So, I got ten minutes worth of fresh air and for the rest of the day my watch kept pinging to remind me to stand up and I ignored it all. I sat and clicked through countless pages and read endless comments and in the end narrowed things down, but I'm not done yet! 

There, I've admitted to my looney hobby. What's yours?

In the evening the young family is here for dinner. That is one welcome break from my screen time!

We're all in great pre-holiday moods. No one is sick at the moment (except for Ed who is still sounding like he has double pneumonia, but he assures me he is feeling almost great). The stress level, when compared to last year or the year before at this time, is significantly lower. We're all good!

(she finds my bags of hearts moons and stars....)

(he loves ice cream!)

Yep, we're all good.