Look who's coming to dinner.

The forum has been a bit quiet lately, so here's a question? Who out there is putting on Thanksgiving dinner next week? I had 17 at my house last year. This year, it's just a cozy 7 and a few more later for dessert. I use my great grandmother's dinnerware and throw a few leafs in the diningroom table. The Sr. adults prepare the feast while the usual football games are on in the other room, and after dinner, the young adults do the clean-up. All the kids have grown up. This year, spring rolls for appetizers, the typical turkey and gravy, mashed potatos, yams, green bean casserole, black olives, (no jello with carrots in it, yech), pies and a bottle of wine. Okay, a few.
So, what's going on at your house, or where are you going?
Yeay, trip tryptophan

No fancy dinner at my place, I'm working a 12 hour shift that day. And on Christmas, and New's Years Eve (and day).....

Must be nice to be able to have holidays off....

This will be a very quiet and sad Tgiving for us. We normally go to my uncle's where I help him put on a feast for 35 or so. He passed away last week very suddenly. Nothing is confirmed yet but it sounds like I will be cooking with my cousin (his son) and we will scale it back to immediate family. So there will be 15 of us.

For the first time in more than 20 years, we are going to be guests at someone else's house for Thanksgiving. It's tough for me to give this up --> I love to cook our Thanksgiving meal with all of the homemade trimmings. I am still bringing the turkey & stuffing though.... since I have a Nesco.

My sister is coming up from Connecticut Wednesday nights, and we'll drive four hours to Maine to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family. Over the river and through the woods . . . . . . to my brother's house we go!

I hope everyone has a happy T'Day.

Muriel

Turkey Day

This year our oldest won't be able to come home as she has the Sat. kitchen shift on Campus. Sigh----- she did come home this last weekend to see her sister in the High School Musical of Copacabana. So I did make for dinner swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes,peas and frozen pumpkin torte . Anyhow this year for Turkey Day I think it will be us, the younger daughter, her boyfriend, my mom and my brother(as this year is his Ex's turn to have the kids)and my Sis is spending time w/ her in-laws. So I'm still mulling around the menu, but I'm pretty sure it will go like this: Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed rutabaga, asparagus, cranberry relish, rolls, relishes, wine,coffee and since I've already made the frozen torte something else that is fun and fattening.

Sue said:

For the first time in more than 20 years, we are going to be guests at someone else's house for Thanksgiving. It's tough for me to give this up --> I love to cook our Thanksgiving meal with all of the homemade trimmings. I am still bringing the turkey & stuffing though.... since I have a Nesco.

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Love that Nesco, hey Sue?
On the up side... you don't have to clean house before & after this year, or-dishes.

Sue said:

I am still bringing the turkey & stuffing though.... since I have a Nesco.

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womanridge said:

Love that Nesco, hey Sue?

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My Mom has a very large Nesco, white enameled exterior, speckled white on black or blue enamel inside? It was around for holiday dinners since before I was born. Sits on a matching white enameled two door two shelf metal cabinet but perhaps that was bought separately I don't know the history.

Is this a local thing? I thought the Nesco was some strange thing my parents had brought back from Japan after my Dad's hitch in the Navy. I have poked around for historical stuff but really not that much.

We are both from Des Moines so we travel 3 hours to get home. Both our families are there, which makes it easy but hectic since we cram holiday dinners and get-togethers with both families into just a few days. That makes for a LOT of hefty meals and we leave feeling like stuffed turkeys!

We don't have to do the cooking... just the eating and cleaning up.

However, my pumpkin pie craving started early this year. I've already made 4 pumpkin pies and a huge batch of pumpkin waffles and tonight it's pumpkin biscuits.

wezul said:

My Mom has a very large Nesco, white enameled exterior, speckled white on black or blue enamel inside? It was around for holiday dinners since before I was born. Sits on a matching white enameled two door two shelf metal cabinet but perhaps that was bought separately I don't know the history.

Is this a local thing? I thought the Nesco was some strange thing my parents had brought back from Japan after my Dad's hitch in the Navy. I have poked around for historical stuff but really not that much.

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Glad you should ask, Wezul. The Nesco was manufactured by the National Enameling and stamping Company in Milw., Wi. in the early 30's.
But, I apologize for hijacking my own thread.

womanridge said:

Glad you should ask, Wezul. The Nesco was manufactured by the National Enameling and stamping Company in Milw., Wi. in the early 30's.
But, I apologize for hijacking my own thread.

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Hey! I did not know that!

There are a couple great things about having a Nesco....

One, the turkey always turns out moist and yummy. It is not the golden, lovely centerpiece turkey that used to grace the cover of the "Post" ... but it is tender and moist and falls off the bone.

Two, when you take the turkey out to carve it, you can make the gravy in the same pan by simply turning up the heat

Three, using the Nesco frees up the oven for the all-important, requisite pie-baking.

Muriel said:

My sister is coming up from Connecticut Wednesday nights, and we'll drive four hours to Maine to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family. Over the river and through the woods . . . . . . to my brother's house we go!

I hope everyone has a happy T'Day.

Muriel

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OooOoOoOoh, not again! Friends in the neighborhood that DON'T ever call me...

Black Fly and I gather with our friends who are also childfree, and their empty nest parents.
There is little funnier than old Mainahs, they like their humor dry, and their turkey moist, ayuh!
Often there is a venison pie or some other lovely old traditional dessert (a berry or apple buckle, betty,
dump, crisp, pie or crumble.)

Canadian Thanksgiving

Up here in the wilds of Canada we celebrate Turkey Day on the second Monday of October...just to be different I suppose. When my family gets together everyone brings part of the dinner. This year there were 15 of us and we had vegetables and dip, cheese and crackers and spanakopita (sp?) for appetizers along with mulled cider; roast pork, green bean casserole, mashed garlic potatoes with sour cream and cream cheese, fresh rolls, salad, roasted sweet potatoes for the main course and pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. Yummy. For Gar's family we always go out to a restaurant for dinner at noon and then go back to his cousin's place for coffee and dessert and a nice long walk.

I can't go without turkey so we had a quiet dinner for two on the Saturday before the family celebrations...with lots of wine.

BumbleBee said:

... we had ... green bean casserole...

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That green bean casserole is a standard on BOTH sides of the border.

iRene said:

That green bean casserole is a standard on BOTH sides of the border.

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An ancient and noble dish for sure

Controversy! uh oh..

iRene said:

That green bean casserole is a standard on BOTH sides of the border.

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Taking a perfectly good green bean and covering it with cambells soup and saltines is a waste of a good bean!

IMHO, steam the little rascals, add a bit of salt, real butter, and plop them on my plate next to a big pile of mashed potato. Don't cook them to mush either. They should stay crunchy!

The tradition of mushing them up with soup and crackers came from planting too many of them!

Same goes with zuccinni, green fried tomatoes

We'll be staying close to home this year.

Once again the holidays

Not to be a wet blanket but there are a number of folks out there that get seriously bummed on the holidays... Could be many reasons, loss of a loved one... inability to get "home" or whatever...

Thanksgiving has all the earmarks of sucking for me this year. My local daughter and her husband and baby are hosting the dinner this year. I can certainly understand that.. a baby and all, it's so much easier than carting the little turkey around. My granddaughter Lali was born on Thanksgiving last year so its a birthday celebration too.

Anyway... I was specifically asked not to come. She's decided it's her fathers turn and I'm persona non grata.

My son and his family and my daughter and hers are in Maryland and having dinner with my daughter-in-laws family...I would probably be welcome, but can't get there this year.

My local friends all have other plans and the rest of my relations are in Colorado.. My "real" family, the motorcycle family, is scattered all over the US.

So gone are the days of dinner for 25 ... Thanksgiving was my absolute favorite holiday for years and years. This year I'm looking for a soup kitchen to serve at so I'll be fine.

I might suggest that those of you that are hosting a Thanksgiving celebration, pull another chair up to the table, get on the phone and call around until you find someone who "doesn't have plans" and share your celebration with them. Keep calling until you find someone, hijack someone from an old folks home, ask at your church or doctors office... there IS someone out there who would be thankful to be included.

I would like to share a short Thanksgiving essay I wrote many many years ago. Before you read it please note, that both my older son and daughter have learned to make the turkey stuffing.



I could feel the tears well in the back of my sinuses, mustering strength to break through the dam of eyelids. It didnt have anything to do with the onions I was peeling. Sure, I remembered the onion-chopping-opening of Like Water for ChocolateNo, I had just realized the one true and only fear of my entire life. In this world of muggers, crooks and thieves; in a time of impending natural disaster and man-made doom; having been to strange foreign places alone on a motorcycle, standing here in my own kitchen at dawn, I clearly saw before me the only thing I really feared: that I would die before one of my children learned how to make my turkey stuffing.

Now this is not just any stuffing. This is MY MOTHERÔÇÖS stuffing. Not the kind she makes now. She has long since forgotten how or eschewed it in favor of some gourmet rendition of wild rice and nuts and grapes. This is the stuffing I learned by osmosis from my youngest days. Learning the smells before I could talk, like the young animal learns the scent of its own and only mother. I grew up watching the process quietly from a tall stool set up nearby so I wouldnÔÇÖt get in the way; later helping with the small tasks of chopping and stirring. The recipe non-existent, the movements concise, the ritual proscribed. I donÔÇÖt know where my mother learned it, maybe she made it up as she went along, but every year of my childhood it was the same.

In my own home, I began making it myself. The first few years cautiously, but, like riding a bike or dancing, the act itself took over. The first time my father tasted it, he harrumphed, ÔÇ£not enough sage or onions!ÔÇØ I began to protest, but my mother gently said, ÔÇ£HeÔÇÖs kidding, itÔÇÖs perfect.ÔÇØ

I make turkey stuffing only once a year at Thanksgiving. Ex-husbands garner invitations and drag their reluctant, often vegetarian, new wives to my house for a ÔÇ£piece of pieÔÇØ- but only after a huge plate of stuffing. (And ÔÇ£maybe a little to take home if you have any extra.ÔÇØ) Former boyfriends start calling around election day trying to rekindle a flame, at least through December. And my children come from all over the country and sometimes the world, saying they know how special the holiday is to me, but I know itÔÇÖs really for the stuffing.

Turkey stuffing is not something you make frivolously right before you eat, like Aunt MadelineÔÇÖs St. Louis Salad, a glass of wine in one hand and a kitchen full of guests. No- turkey stuffing is made in the early dawn in a quiet house, sending tendrils of aroma up the stairs and curling around sleepy heads, whispering, ÔÇ£itÔÇÖs Thanksgiving.ÔÇØ Stuffing takes commitment. The commitment to pull your self out of that warm bed, pull on a robe and fuzzy slippers and pad into the kitchen. It takes quiet thoughts and ritual moves.

I yearn for one of my children to say, ÔÇ£lÔÇÖll come home early for Thanksgiving and helpÔÇØ, and to see them appear at the kitchen door, hours before they would normally be up, and fall into step beside me. Chopping the celery and onions, rubbing the spices. Asking me, ÔÇ£IsnÔÇÖt that too much sage?ÔÇØ Absorbing my legacy.

Turkey stuffing, like the eggs that go in at the last minute, is the glue that holds us all together; gives life continuity; draws people, living and dead, into one rich, tasty, lump. What else do I have to leave them? To truly understand, they must come unbidden with a desire for that knowledge. No, you canÔÇÖt have my recipe, there isnÔÇÖt one, because, like all the important things you want to leave your children, there are no words to hold it.

When, or if, that day comes and I can turn over my life to one of them; and they stand there chopping onions with a small child sitting on a tall stool nearby; I will be content.

Tomorrow... MY MOTHERÔÇÖS MEATLOAF