Completed November 27, 2007 - Joanne
Here's my diary for this year's Thanksgiving feast. There was twelve at our table this year. We purchased two turkeys from 4H club/Slow Food Russian River (at auction). We cooked the larger one, a 20.68 lb Blue Slate. The turkeys were both Heritage breed toms, and raised locally by 4H club kids (coincidentally, by a family we know). We were really excited about having our first ever Blue Slate and Spanish Black heritage turkeys. Yum!

If you are curious about how last year's Thanksgiving went, click here.

November 23 - The wrap up
The turkey was amazing. It was ready early but we made it work. Special thanks to the Thode family who raised the turkey we enjoyed. It was the best turkey we've ever eaten and showed that it had lived a great life.





We thought everything came out really well. The final lineup included the Apple-Yam recipe from Park Avenue Potluck, which was completely devored. The cranberries with the nuts (who would have thought?) was fantastic. The recipe was from the I'm Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas cookbook by Marcel Desaulniers, which is a great cookbook in itself.

The red turnip was white and the gold turnips were gold. I loved the Tartine pumpkin pie recipe and would recommend it - very balanced flavors. I jotted down the recipes for the bread pudding and the dressing (which was the best I've ever made) so I will add them shortly. The peas with pancetta and butter is inspired from the new Jamie Oliver Cookbook.

The raspberry corn muffins were brought and were the Ina Garten mix from Stonewall Kitchen (aka Barefoot Contessa). Expensive but really good.

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November 22 - Turkey Day is here!
The coffee is made. I'm having a nice breakfast of Swanton Farms Olallieberry   Jam and Redwood Hill goat cheese on leftover Challah. Yum. Pots from yesterday which we were too tired to wash, are washed. Oven is on.

On the agenda this morning:
Clean house (sounds like a quick job, doesn't it?)
Peel potatoes
Shell Peas
Make Pies
Make Brandy Butter for Bread Pudding
Blanche Stinging Nettles
Cook Pancetta
Set Table
Arrange Flowers
Pick Herbs & Melt Butter for Turkey
Make Gravy


Trent was very helpful yesterday and is very excited to see the guests today. He will enjoy decorating the table in a little while with Thanksgving crafts he made in class. Yesterday he had fun de-brusseling the club of brussels sprouts, and using the food processor to make the dressing.

I've decided to aim for 5pm for dinner so that means the turkey, which needs to rest 40 minutes before carving, needs to come out of the oven at 4:20. If it takes 4 hours to roast, that means I put it in the oven at 12:20 which means it needs to get out of the fridge by 10:20. I also need to prepare the "vegetable rack" which goes under the turkey of celery, carrots and leeks and the turkey basting sauce of wine, butter and herbs. I'm also thinking that maybe I'll roast it upside down for the first hour, in hopes that the bottom of the turkey will be evenly cooked, as that seems to be an issue every year.

The pumpkin pie shells are ready for me to get going on. I've decided to try Tartine's recipe for Pumpkin pie, which I have to double to make two pies. The recipe calls for brown sugar but I may use maple syrup or palm sugar. I decided last night to make our own sauce for the Bread Pudding; combine some sugar butter and brandy for a warm brandy sauce. We tried the Bread Pudding last night with a butterscotch mint sauce and it was not quite right. The Brandy butter should be the perfect thing.


We also tried the dressing (aka stuffing) and the brussels sprouts last night. Both were really good. I think maybe the dressing is one of the best I've made - very light and simple. I will jot down a recipe today.

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November 21 - 3pm - The State of Things
I've managed to make the Persimmon Bread Pudding and noted the recipe so if someone asks for it this year I'm up to tricks. I made a mini one with pear, as there was some bread left - it's very good.

We had a minor scare as to whether or not the turkey would fit into the oven but we tried it and it does. Big sigh of relief!

The Brussels Sprouts are blanched and I'll likely dry run them as a side dish for the Marin Sun Farms filets we are BBQing tonight. The stock is made and sieved and the dressing is done. The dressing was so fresh and crisp, that I decided not to add the pancetta or sage, which means extra pork belly goes in the brussels sprouts. I still have to roast walnuts. The cranberry sauce was made today as well. Plan for tomorrow is to make the pies in the morning, prep the potatoes and peas, set the table and do the flowers.

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November 21 - 6am - The Race is On

I'm up early this morning so that I can get ahead of the projects and have time to play with our 5 year old, who has a friend coming today. The task list is long today. I need to:

Prep and blanche Brussels Sprouts
Roast Walnuts
Assemble & Bake Bread Pudding
Make Stock
Cut vegetables & make Breadcrumbs for Stuffing
Make Stuffing
Make Cranberry Sauce
Maybe: Shell peas & peel potatoes

We had the fantastic little Marin Sun Farms chickens last night (photo, above). Trent had a quick lesson in butchery, when I removed the head, feet and inards, reserving them for stock. There isn't much left! The bones will go into the stock today along with beet, carrot, leek, and celery tops and some peelings from parsnip and celeriac.

I always make the pumpkin pies the day before Thanksgiving but I'm going to be wild and leave it for tomorrow morning. My mom has a new kitchen so I'll be going over there today to help get a few side dishes going. They have two ovens and I only have one.


Jack & Trent went to Petaluma yesterday to pick up the turkeys. Thanks so much to the Thode family who raised them! They were gorgeous looking (each has a little tag with farmer name and ID#). The Spanish Black was 15 pounds and the Slate Blue was almost 21. We decided that since the Slate Blue is so large we'd roast only one turkey and save the Spanish Black for a Thanksgiving reprise next week.

My son, Trent and I took on the Ultimate Gingerbread House Kit (it's massive, much bigger than I expected) over the last two days (the first day we glued it together). Yesterday we applied about 75% of the decorations. It's not done, but we'll see if we get back to it before dinner tomorrow otherwise we'll finish it on Friday.

   

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