Plans for Thanksgiving

This year the couple who invited me and my brother to their place for Thanksgiving in earlier years are going to their children's home out of state. So I'll be preparing Thanksgiving dinner. I've invited a single guy from church who has also been a guest at the other couple's Thanksgiving dinner.

I'll start the day by going to Mass at my parish church. Then I'll mostly be involved with preparing and setting up for the dinner.

First I'll prepare the bread stuffing (Pepperidge Farm mix, with some sauteed celery and onion added). When that's ready it goes into the bird and the bird goes into the oven. The giblets will cook in a double boiler. Then there should be time to set out mixed nuts and cheese and crackers, and maybe tortilla chips and dip, for the social hour. I'll peel and boil some potatoes and mash them with milk, a little butter and dried parsley. Hubbard squash will be peeled, cut up, boiled and then mashed with butter, honey, and nutmeg. When the turkey's done, I'll make gravy from the pan drippings, flour, the cooking water from the veggies and the giblets, with a bit of soy sauce, Tabasco, mild paprika, Bell's Poultry Seasoning, etc. (Since my brother doesn't eat giblets, I'll have them available on the side, rather than chopping them into the gravy) We'll also have cranberry sauce, which I'll make this evening; and I got some green olives stuffed with pimiento to go with celery on a relish plate (first time in years for the relish plate). For dessert it will be pumpkin pie and mince pie, with whipped cream to accompany the former and cheddar cheese for either; thin mints and chocolates will also be offered. I'll bake the pies this evening.

When I was a boy, all of the above would be part of the dinner. It would also have included creamed onions, sweet potatoes, steamed puddings with custard sauce and hard sauce, sometimes scalloped oysters, and sometimes potato stuffing in addition to the bread. You'll notice there are no green beans, no salad, in fact no green vegetables of any sort other than the relish plate. That's the tradition I learned, and I'm sticking with it. You can have your green vegetables 363 days per year, but not on Thanksgiving or Christmas.

To accompany it, I have several kinds of beer, whiskey, and rum for the social hour and merlot and Graves wines for the dinner. There will be coffee to go with dessert.

In addition to what I do this evening, I'll probably spend most of the time from 10:00 to 2:00 preparing the meal, 2:00 to 4:00 enjoying it, and 4:00 to 5:00 putting away leftovers and helping with the clean-up. Mostly we'll use the fancy china (parents' wedding gifts) and silver — not dishwasher safe. Perhaps we'll call the cousins in Colorado in the evening, after the guest has left. If anybody wants supper, I recommend another piece of pie.

I guess it's about time to leave the computer and start cooking.