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As I sit here, I smell the turkey necks and giblets simmering in the kitchen, with a faint whiff of a brownie pie beginning to share the air. Turkeys are defrosted (finally) and will go in the roasters in the morning. (We now get smaller turkeys plural instead of the giant bird I used to get, because it’s easier. And we’re older.) The ham is ready to go in the oven with a homemade spiced pear glaze. Guests will start arriving tomorrow morning, some bringing food to share, some bringing themselves only, which is fine. This is a middling year (big years, we end up with ~20 at the tables; this year it’s 15. Small is 10 or fewer, small enough that we don’t need to put up another table.)
Thanksgiving is the one time in the year I get to pull out all the old stuff and show it off (much of it’s used in small bits during the year, but not all at once and on the big tables, and some pieces are saved for the big day. My mother used the two cut-crystal bowls (had been her mother’s or grandmother’s) at Easter and Christmas as well as Thanksgiving, but now that we’re both singing in church choirs for those holidays, we don’t try to entertain then. I use the last of my great-grandmother’s Haviland china (four or five salad plates) for dessert plates–they’re pretty, and why would I not? They should be enjoyed and “matching” isn’t a priority.
So I have fun with it all. It’s not a formal meal, in the sense that anyone dresses up for it…part of the fun is the juxtaposition of the fancy table and the casually dressed people. The people are the rest of the fun. We started years ago doing Thanksgiving with another couple (it was in-law avoidance…we “already had other plans.”) Then we started adding people who were “strays”–without plans or family. And additional friends. And so on. It’s not exactly the same group every year, though the original other couple is still part of it (almost 40 years now.) But we invite people who make it fun for the others–who enjoy each other, and arrive ready to enjoy the feast.
It’s been warm and humid all week, with strong winds from the SSW blowing the pretty leaves off the trees–most of our oaks peak the week before, or of, Thanksgiving. We started planting oaks from collected acorns 30 years ago, and now they’re really showing their colors. Some are orange, some are golden, some are red in every shade from flame-red to burgundy. Some of the roughleaf dogwoods still have dull purple (in direct light–lavender with the light behind them) leaves, and some of the rusty blackhaw viburnums are in shades of deep rose to rich red, often with a black margin (something nibbled…) The fig leaves and mulberry leaves are bright yellow; the few remaining ash leaves are butter yellow. The Caddo maple has tricolor leaves in green/yellow/red; the bigtooth maple hasn’t started turning yet. If the weather were going to be right for it, we’d take people out on the land to see what colors are out there (and what birds.)
But the weather is about to change–a lot. Sometime between 5 am and midmorning, the wind will shift as a strong cold front moves in–NNW instead of SSW–and the temperature will drop about 30-35 degrees tomorrow–from highs in the low 80sF the last few days, with lows in the upper 60s, right down the scale to tomorrow night’s 30-31F with Friday’s high in the low to mid 50s. Rain, even thunderstorms, may accompany the front, and wind will increase in the new direction to 20-25 mph with gusts higher. Not, for people who’ve been back in early autumn for over a week, the kind of weather in which you drag people out onto the land. In good weather, we also get the swords out and do some fencing, and in any weather people may bring instruments and play them. There’s no requirement, it just happens. (We’re all acoustic-instrument fans here–lute, guitar, flute, sometimes violin and piano.) When the weather’s really nasty, though, people head home early–and reasonably so.
Two sets of people are driving down from the north–they’ll be having an interesting drive (busy road, possible rain and certainly gusty wind) as the front will be getting to them by midnight tonight and their drive will be along the back side of it. I’ll be wishing them safe travels, for sure. Others are coming up from the south (head winds, but a shorter drive.)
And I’d better get back to work instead of indulging myself here. I need to lay out the tables and feed the horses and make the last of the desserts I’m making. The book, by the way, has been going better the past couple of days (not today–this is a cooking day and tomorrow is a people day–I’ll work on Friday.) The coughing fits are mostly gone and energy is returning at last.
Comment by Jenn — November 26, 2010 @ 8:21 am
Hope your thanksgiving was great. Sounds like the way it should be. Not getting together for the sake of getting together but because you want to celebrate together. That really it the point of a feast is it not?
Comment by elizabeth — November 26, 2010 @ 9:21 am
We had a great time. Friends old and new, and food. The friends from the north did have an interesting drive (both directions) as the front did hit–hard–shortly before noon, and temperatures dropped from near 80F (it was over 80 in Austin) into the low 40s by 8 pm (last time I looked) and on into the low 30s by morning, most of the drop in the first hour. So the slightly over-warm house, with ceiling fans on, became cozily just-warm-enough.
Comment by Adam Baker — November 26, 2010 @ 4:28 pm
Sounds like an awesome way to do thanksgiving!!
Comment by elizabeth — November 26, 2010 @ 7:35 pm
Although our Thanksgiving tradition started as an evasion of in-law demands for a visit in both couples, it grew over the years. For the first years, we were in places with little room for a crowd (understatement), limited to 6-8. When we moved here, we had a larger room, but long and narrow and the only way in and out of the house–more passage than room. I built the folding tables (that connected end to end) and we did manage 10 or 12. Then my mother bought the house we now use, with its big back room and then we got to know DRW and his wife, and their friends, and our autistic son was old enough to tolerate both a long dinner and visitors better, and things kind of took off. We’ve had people who came for 3-4 years, but then they moved or decided to start their own, and people who have come forever (the other originating couple) and others who are 10+ year vets, and then we add new ones when I find someone who’s feeling kind of lost that T-day. I do need to repair the chairs we have (the oldest are the chairs that go with the dining table my mother had when I was a kid–so we’re talking 60 year old chairs–no wonder the fabric’s giving way) and get more, since I never had more than 12. We use folding chairs for the rest, but the folding chairs give out after awhile too.
Basically, it’s a lot of fun.
Comment by elizabeth — November 26, 2010 @ 7:43 pm
My object all sublime (well, sort of) is to have all the enjoyable parts of a traditional T-day…lots of food the people like, a pretty table…and none of the parts of T-day that make people want to not go there (the quarreling, the demands for performance whether it be dressing up or eating something you don’t like.) I can’t claim there’s not an element of showing off (look! pretty table!) but it’s not aimed at scoring points on anyone else…there’s no rivalry. When I see them eating stuff and looking happy about it, and talking to each other about any of a dozen topics that aren’t starting a catfight…and esp. maybe when the “old hands” and the “newbies” seem to join seamlessly into making new friends territory, I’m gleeful.
Comment by Jenn — November 27, 2010 @ 10:43 am
It’s your own version of the “High Lord’s Table”
Our’s involves two traditions. The traditional: Turkey, potatoes, dressing etc… But we live in a very Ukrainian area where food has survived past three generations so on the table there will also be cabbage rolls, perogies, kalbasi, etc… (we are not of Ukrainian decent but the food is great) Usually enough food for 2 weeks of leftovers. At least we did until my brother-in-law joined the fold.
Comment by Adam Baker — November 27, 2010 @ 11:52 am
So, how does one go about getting added to the guest list for Thanksgiving? haha
Comment by John — November 27, 2010 @ 4:28 pm
That spiced pear glaze sounds good. I don’t suppose the recipe is public?
Comment by elizabeth — November 27, 2010 @ 5:26 pm
I make it mostly by feel. It started when a friend with whom we were doing Thanksgiving *that* year told me about making a glaze from the liquid in a jar of spiced pears. Well, we had pears (there were two bearing pear trees here when we moved here, very old. One has since died. And we planted fruit trees, too.) And I thought I’d make spiced pear jam. So I did that, and from jam to glaze is a short step, involving brown sugar. I wrote the recipe that I came up with down…and now I can’t find it, and for years haven’t had time to make jam anyway. I was very careful (made several batches, kept notes, etc.) and the recipe as written has the perfect balance (for me and for others who’ve eaten it) of spices. By itself, the jam is good on hot rolls, in filled pastries, and over ice cream.
But this year I looked at the last knobbly misshapen pears that showed up and thought “Hmmmm…I wonder…” I put a couple of them in the fridge until I had more time.
Then two days before Thanksgiving, when the miserable virus finally let me think and see straight, I peeled and cored them and chopped them into chunks and put the chunks with a little water in a small saucepan. Added some sugar to help them stew, and set them to simmer themselves softer. Mashed at them with a potato masher when they had softened somewhat (making smaller lumps) and then added the spices: cinnamon, ginger, cloves. I hadn’t measured the softened pear goo, so I didn’t measure the spices–I was going by smell (the smell I remembered from before), but I’m fairly sure there was more cinnamon than either ginger or cloves. For other people I suggest adding the spices you like until it smells right, whatever right is for you. That’s how I left it in the fridge (in a covered container) until it was time to glaze the ham. It made maybe a cup to a cup and a half. To that I added several large globs of crystallized guajillo honey (a Texas brush-country plant) because I had a jar of guajillo honey that had crystallized and some dark brown sugar, until it was what I considered glaze consistency. There was some left over; I put it in a bowl for people to use as a condiment and they did.
So I suggest, if you want to make it, that you get a couple or three pears (smaller pears–get 3-4) and simmer them with
sugar and a little water (maybe 1/4 cup? It depends on how many pears. Just enough to keep the pears from scorching before they can release their juices.) If you want a smoother puree, run the cooked pears through a food mill or something similar. Then start tinkering with the spices. A pinch at a time and then sniff. At some point, the smell will be exactly right for you. Now you want it sweeter–honey or brown sugar or both will work…as a