For me, planning Thanksgiving
dinner is almost as fun as eating Thanksgiving dinner. A couple of weeks before, I start menu
planning and recipe gathering. I
make lists, gather ingredients, and go shopping. A couple of days before, I make sure meats are thawing and
bread is drying. I figure out
which parts I can do the day before, including chopping onions and celery,
cooking cranberry sauce, and making desserts. I plan out the timing so I can carry out the precise choreography
to not crowd the oven, yet keep everything hot until the moment it’s served. I always include a few traditional
must-haves, such as cranberry sauce, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes,
pumpkin pie; I always include as many local ingredients as possible. My cranberries are from far away, but bread
from Pekara with herbs and onions from Claybank Farms will be made into
dressing, the potatoes are from the Moore’s in Watseka, and the sweet potatoes
(grotesquely large ones, I might add) are from Claybank Farms also. This year I’m throwing in an
oyster-mushroom appetizer (oysters from Claybank Farms), a kale salad, and
roasted Brussels sprouts with gorgonzola and pecans (kale and sprouts from Blue
Moon). And a French tart, because,
well, the French side of the family must be represented (apples from
Monticello’s Wolfe Orchard).
My husband and I have been together
almost sixteen years, and yet this was the first year we’ve been able to admit
to each other a deep, dark secret we didn’t know we shared: neither of us likes turkey. For many years I’ve been going to the
trouble of pre-ordering a free-range, organic turkey, thawing it, brining it,
stuffing it with citrus and herbs, roasting it for hours, cutting it and
keeping it warm for guests (once we even drove a thawing, brining turkey all
the way to Virginia). Then, after
the event, I would dutifully wrap up the leftovers and put them in the freezer
where they would stay for...years.
Until I would pull out the package, the meat unrecognizable with freezer
burn, struggle with my conscience over the waste, then finally throw it away,
knowing none of us would eat it.
We seem to have passed the turkey-hate gene to our son, who eats all of
Thanksgiving treats with gusto, except the turkey.
No more.
This year I bravely cut turkey out
of the Thanksgiving menu. I know,
to some it’s an atrocity—possibly anarchy—but I believe I can successfully
celebrate the giving of thanks for nature’s bounty without turkey. It can be done. I am serving instead a gorgeous smoked
ham from our favorite Triple S Farms, and a roasted, stuffed chicken (also from
Triple S) for the non-ham eaters, or for those who seem to think a Thanksgiving
without fowl is indeed foul. And I
will feel thankful, and my guests will be full when they leave, and we will
gladly look forward to eating a few ham sandwiches after the last platters and
dishes and roasting pans and glassware are clean and put away.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Yay Ham!
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