Chuck's Last Days/Turducken

Getting started on this post tonight - an atypical night at home. About to get in the tub. Today - good day. Did everything I set out to do. The package for the IRS complete - Robin, my accountant, putting finishing touches on it this evening. Day spent doing charity sewing - the breast inserts. Made a new friend, Colleen - sat with her when we took a break for lunch. Nice! She's got a nice story as to why she's a new transplant to Evanston - Illinois for that matter. Until recently she called North Carolina home until she reconnected with an old beau whom she'd been serious with about thirty years ago. They split for practical reasons. Both married, now both divorced and finally reunited. He works - she just retired from being a nurse, so she moved to his neck of the woods. Ah......romance, love lost, love found again and they're in their sixties. I'm such a hopeless romantic.

I'm getting into holiday mode - it's what's occupying my mind these days. Looks like I'll have about 16 people for Thanksgiving. This year with my knee so bum, I'm going to strategize how to get a ton done way before the event. There is no reason the table can't be set a week ahead (I'll throw a sheet over it to keep the cats off). The house can be spit spot. The banana, cranberry nut and pumpkin breads can be made and frozen and I can even make the yeast rolls, partially bake them and freeze them. Same with the parsnip onion soup - done now and frozen (I'll wait to add the cream). The Grand Marnier cranberry relish sits well for a week and the pear walnut jello salad can be made well ahead and rest in its mold - nothing to go bad there. Sausage  onion and celery for the stuffing can be browned the weekend before so that when I make the stuffing the day of, it's ready to go. Three sizes of onions for the creamed onions can certainly be peeled days ahead - that's an odious task that takes too much time when you're in a time crunch.

I mean really - this could actually be a well paced and relaxing holiday if I play my cards right! Think this morning I'll walk my property and check on the herb patch - got to watch for the first frost. I'll check on Chuck, the Bourbon Red turkey I've been fattening all summer. So what if he and Joey have become fast friends - he was always intended for the serving platter. Next I'll prune the grape vines and harvest the remainder of the concord grapes that have been sweetening through the fall - into the bathtub they'll go - next week I'll press them and put up my version of Nouveau Beaujolais - a lovely light and fruity wine that will go smashingly with roasted Chuck. The vines, I'll weave into napkin rings, leaving a few of the tiny leaves on for effect - they will still be pretty by Thanksgiving.

The pumpkin patch needs watching with the squirrels bustling for winter. I've got a bunch of little pie pumpkins I've been nursing under chicken wire - the longer they sit in the cold the sweeter they'll be. And OMG what a cranberry harvest! Yesterday I flooded the bog and threshed the bushes under the water (cold job!) and you wouldn't believe how many cranberries floated to the surface - I'm going to have to make everything cranberry this season and give tons away too - you can count on a cranberry present this Christmas!

As you can see, I'm incredibly busy getting ready for this all important holiday - I take my Pilgrim-hood very seriously! One step at a time - today I'll finish spinning the wool for the runner I plan to weave that will run down the center of the holiday table. And, if there's time,  I'll dip some beeswax candles from the honeycomb I harvested from the hives last week.

Your challenge today is getting your own plan in place. I'm sure you take this holiday as seriously as I do - it would be un-American to give it short shrift! Perhaps you could do something different this year and learn to make a turducken. A turducken is a tricky affair. First you need to bone a turkey, a duck and a chicken. The chicken is stuffed inside the duck and then the duck is stuffed inside the turkey with dressing between the layers of meat. Go for it!!!

Peace,
Sarah