Heading into Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  I had hoped to do all of my food shopping at one store to just simplify my life. I soon realized that while the local kosher supermarket was a good source for the turkey, it was not a good place to buy anything else for the meal. Thinking through the rest of my shopping list I thought that perhaps with the newly lowered prices at Whole Foods I could get the rest of the supplies for the meal there.

Alas, I was wrong. The prices were so high that I walked out not with a giant filled grocery cart but three items.  I had to end up doing what I didn't want to do and do my shopping at several different vendors. Finally, everything is in my house and is ready to cook.

Since I grew up not too far from the cranberry bogs. I adore cranberry and it appears in several forms during the meal.There is a can of jellied sauce to please my husband and future son-in-law. As a nod to my favorite from childhood, I made cranberry relish.

It is the easiest thing in the world to make. This is what goes into it, an orange, peel and all, cranberries and sugar.

You grind it up in the food processor and serve it a couple of days later.

It's beautiful and delicious. I will be making a whole berry cranberry sauce as well  (cranberries and sugar, microwaved covered, for 8 minutes- if you want you can add a cinnamon stick as the sauce cooks).

The desserts were begun a few days ago. Continuing with the cranberry theme, we have cranberry, chocolate orange tart. It's a rectangular pie. I recently discovered that square pie has become a thing in the universe of food on the internet.

Square pie makes sense. You can cut the pie into small squares which allows guests to more comfortably decide for themselves how much dessert they actually want to eat rather than being forced into a too large portion by their hostess.

There is also a rectangular pumpkin pie.

My youngest is nut allergic so this is sadly not a nut crust. I did make candied nuts so people can add nuts to their desserts as they wish.

These nuts are dangerous to have around. They tend to disappear.  For me, the easiest way to make spiced nuts is to put a cup of brown sugar in about half a cup of water and heat it in the microwave. After the sugar melts, I add spices. I like my nuts sweet spicy and hot. So, today I added lots of cinnamon, allspice cinnamon about 1/2 a teaspoon of salt grated fresh ginger, hot paprika, and cayenne pepper.I spread the nuts( how many?  enough to cover the bottom of my pan) on parchment paper in a jelly roll pan. Then I poured the spiced sugar over the nuts and stirred so the nuts were well covered and let the nuts cook in a 350 oven remembering to stir the nuts every once in while until done. Allow to cool trying not to sitch too many nuts, and then place in a clean jar.

I baked mashed sweet potatoes in a springform pan so they will look impressive when served. (Ooh! a cake of sweet potatoes!)

My son had already begun on some of the vegetable side dishes. He plans to get up early to make the turkey. The turkey will be basted with this bottle of New York state "champagne"

This bottle was in the apartment when my husband moved in in 1978. I remember that I had intended to serve it at my husbands 35th birthday and we never quite got around to it because we started the evening with really good champagne and it was unpleasant to drink cheap champagne afterward.

I have attempted to open the bottle several times over the decades but to no avail. tonight my husband and son managed to loosen the screw cap. We tried a bit of the wine. It has just a whisper of bubbles left. It is a dark golden brown and tastes kind of like tawny port. it won't kill us or ruin the turkey.

I won't be setting up the straw cornucopia at the end of the table overflowing with fruit and unshelled nuts like my mother used to. I am not going to start out my day with a drive out to Plymouth Rock as we did at least once. My table will be surrounded by people I love and we will all sit together and enjoy a meal cooked with love.

I guess if the guests are unhappy with the meal they can call the number on this truck that we saw last night after an excellent dinner with friends.