Friday after Thanksgiving

Not to be too commercial-spirited about it, but somehow that vision of a Santa at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade has always ushered in the Christmas season for us. Thursday evening packs two punches: the big meal of course, and too, in the background, my daughter streams beautiful music that has the unmistakable melodies of the December holiday. And the Friday after? Well, at the farmhouse, we're still trying to figure out just exactly how much turkey meat we have in the fridge from The Big Meal, and Ed is enthusiastically filling in the belly of a Santa in the jigsaw puzzle began yesterday...

 

 

... but it is also the day that the young family acquires the Christmas tree and I am in on that project too. The Christmas season is truly upon us.

It is a bitter cold day. By noon we are still below freezing. I had stayed up past midnight to finish tidying up after the blow-out meal, so I only had to put clean dishes away this morning. And of course there was the matter of the animals.

The thing is, days can be beautiful, magical even, but you have to expect small pockets of wistfulness (if only the young family was with us...) and even the occasional calamity. For example, we lost a chicken yesterday. On Thanksgiving morning, Pepper was there. By evening, when Ed went out to put the cheepers away for the night, she was gone.

We'd raised her from baby-hood. Little Pepper, and how she grew! Maybe four years old. Something like that. Once upon a time, she had been the low one in the cheeper hierarchy, but somehow she managed to crawl out and up and since we put in the new girls this spring, she was the queen. All the chickens were scared of her. When she approached the feeding tray, they scattered, hanging back until she was done.

She was also our most reliable layer: nearly every day, even in the cold season, and always in the coop. 

Ed and I are left with the problem of "what now." We have no idea who took her, though we know it was a complete swipe: there are no feathers. No battle. No remains. I suggest we lock them up for a couple of weeks. We'll also put out the trap, if only to see what we are dealing with. 

Ah well. That's what happens when you raise happy chickens: some of them become a feast for another family of animals. And now we are left with five cheepers -- four girls and one boy. (And 6.5 cats.)

Breakfast, alone again for me. At a table with Thanksgiving remains: the table cloth, the extra chairs and high chair, the puzzle. But no Ed. He's still sleeping and I want my coffee.

Eventually I head out to meet up with my daughter and her kids. Let's pick the biggest tree ever -- is the theme. My secondary assignment for this day is to do a holiday photo of the three kids, so I'm being more careful with my camera.

We're at Bruce's tree lot once again and did I mention it's a cold day??

They settle on a nine-footer. And then another little one for their mom's "office" (actually a corner of the bedroom). And lots of pine branches. The cars are loaded with green stuff. The kids are very patient with us.

Very patient.

We are in two cars. All the green stuff gets dropped off at their place and Sparrow stays home for his nap. Snowdrop comes to the farmhouse where, guess what, Ed is still slouched over the jigsaw puzzle.

Snowdrop and I hit the books.

Toward evening, she and I are back at her house. Time to decorate the Christmas tree!  I do believe this is my daughter's favorite holiday moment. There are lots of treats and the music's lovely and even the biggest chore (putting up the lights) seems like a fun play adventure.

(When he's not helping me untangle the lights, Sandpiper is happy just to watch everything and everyone around him...)

Done!

(Definition of a cozy evening....)

I come home in time for a late supper of leftovers with Ed. (That is, once I tear him away from working on the puzzle!) 

The friday after Thanksgiving wears many hats, but there's one that's reliably there for us, year after year: heating up the leftovers. From turkey to apple pie. Delicious leftovers.

Thanlsgiving week: the day

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope yours is a good one and maybe a million times better than last year's. I hope you've had a decent year and that you have sweet plans for the one ahead. 

Time for me to unroll the Thanksgiving carpet here for our final big day of Thanksgiving feasting.

Morning: this may be the only quiet moment of the day. I make a point of doing a broader walk through farmette lands. To take it all in, to take a few deep breaths and acknowledge feelings of gratitude. But not too long a stroll. It's snowing ever so lightly and the wind is fierce.

Okay, let's roll up the sleeves now. Bacon in the oven. Fruits cut up and readied. Yogurts, scones, cinnamon rolls - all on the table, waiting for the young family to arrive.

We start with a glance at the parade on TV.

Can I tear the kids away to make some cranberry muffins? Yes I can!

Hey, it's Santa, bringing up the tail end of the parade!

Is it the real one?

So they say!

Can't be too relaxed. I work on the lunch. Soup, with grilled cheese squares.

There is play throughout, but until I get that turkey in the oven, my mind is on keeping to a schedule. Still, I can't resist putting in a puzzle piece with these two...

Or giving a bounce to this little guy...

 

 

 

 Family at play, all around me.

I work at getting the corn out, the beans ready. I cut up apples, onions, oranges, lemon, fennel, ginger and garlic for the bird. Peel lots of potatoes for the hasselback cheesy potato gratin. Get things ready for when the turkey is out and the gravy making begins. 

Five hours later, the big guy is ready. The potatoes are baking in the sheep shed and as I run to give them one last sprinkle of cheese, I note how incredibly cold it is out there. 

And now everything comes together...

 

 

And the Thanksgiving meal is about to begin.

How quickly kids grow up! A few months ago, the idea of eating a new meat would have had both kids pack up and leave for Hawaii. Or some other remote land. Today, Snowdrop begs to go after the drumstick.

 

And Sandpiper? He likes to hold on to long stemware.

And he loves the whipped cream on the chocolate pie!

 

Oh, my two young families! How magnificent it is to share holidays and meals with them!

One group shot before they leave!

And a photo from Chicago, too. Happy Thanksgiving Primrose and family!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. 

With so much love!!

Thanksgiving week: the day before

How times and habits have changed! For years and years, Wednesday before Thanksgiving was my great grocery shopping day. The store would be packed, but I'd persevere, pushing a load, checking off lists. In the evening, I'd fix a dismissive dinner of spaghetti or gnocchi (we never did takeout in those days) and I'd start in on baking.

Not so today. No trip to the grocery store, no baking. In fact, it was a sweetly different kind of day. Let me fill in a few details.

Early on, I left a sleeping Ed, did my morning stuff...

... and hurried to get to an appointment at my clinic. One of those tests where I'm supposed to track something annually to see if interventions are needed, only we had Covid, so I didn't bother. It's been three years of no tracking. No matter, I got my results immediately -- nothing needed, proceed as usual! Yay.

Then I hustled over to Clasen's. I love this bakery of ours in the holiday season! At other times, the cakes are too sweet for me and the breads too dense (you'd rightly compare it to German bakeries) and the location is too out of the way, but at Christmas time it offers the best chocolate covered gingerbread on either side of the Mississippi! Traditionally, I took kids, then grandkids there for a holiday snapshot. Clasen's made a huge gingerbread house and the kids would scramble inside and raid the plate of cookies there for the young ones. With Covid last year, none of that happened. Clasen's still baked the stars moons and hearts, but I had to rely on home delivery (which they did!) to get my fill. This year, they're open for business, though without the gingerbread house. You don't want unvaccinated kids from all over the place inside a tight space stuffing themselves with cookies. Still, I got an email announcing that the gingerbread stuff is baked an ready! I'm in the neighborhood -- why not go there today and stock up? 

I know, I know, it's the wrong holiday! 

 

 

 

I should be thinking about my Thanksgiving meal. Indeed, I should be making inroads on my Thanksgiving meal. Nevertheless, I'm here. And it smells like Christmas. And it's wonderful!

Clasen's is right across the street from Bruce's. Most of our Christmas trees have been purchased at Bruce's and again my thoughts run in the "wrong holiday" direction. I mean, they've cut their trees already and stocked their yard with the best ones now. Why not pick up the wee little farmhouse tree today? For this, I grab the kids. They live nearby.

At first I look at the wee ones that come potted already. But then I broaden my scope. Why not get one just a teensy bit bigger? Without the ready stand, which, after all, is one big waste of plastic each year? Like, why not this one?

Deed is done. Tree is tied to the roof of the car and we're off for our next errand and this one is more in keeping with this week's holiday: we pick up our baked treats from Batch Bakehouse. These were reserved and paid for weeks in advance, when I felt that I could not manage baking more than the three items tomorrow, all at different temperatures and one needing four hours of oven time. So, no dessert baking this year: I let the young family pick the pies and I get them from Batch.

And then the kids are at the farmhouse for lunch and play time. There's no school today which I'm sure is a pain for most parents, but a good thing from my point of view -- one fewer day for them to get exposed to one of the million bugs that are circulating at the moment. I know that's not the right way to look at school, but on the other hand, it's nice to keep everyone healthy for a very busy set of days ahead.

Dad and Sandpiper come to pick them up...

... and still I do not really cook afterward. Instead, Ed and I go out for a short walk, and then I reheat some leftover takeout Chinese for supper, and somewhere in there I make cranberry sauce. Is there anything on this planet that's easier to cook than cranberries, with some sugar, oranges and a knob of ginger? I'd add a splash of Grand Marnier but, you know, there are kids...

And the day is done. A good day, a happy day. I only wish it was thus for every being on this planet. Sigh...

With love...

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.