thanksgiving is my favorite meal of the year… i LOVE potatoes both mashed and sweet, cranberries, gravy, my mother’s wild rice dressing and of course the pies (we usually make pumpkin, apple and blackberry and it doesn’t get much better than pie for breakfast friday morning!) we have a tradition in my family that the birthday person gets to choose whatever they want for their birthday dinner. one year in my mid twenties i couldn’t make it home for thanksgiving so i asked for thanksgiving dinner as my december birthday meal. my mother graciously complied, but was so exhausted by making thanksgiving twice in a three week period that i was not allowed to choose thanksgiving for any future birthday dinners. now that i am “grown up” i understand what an undertaking this meal is and why it is so much nicer to share the cooking with extended family.

this year we will not be going home for thanksgiving. we were all set to take the zephyr train (our delayed holiday from spring break that was cancelled at the beginning of the pandemic) and then i saw dr. fauci on TV saying that he was not going to see his children this thanksgiving and he recommended that the rest of us didn’t travel either. so our train trip has been post-poned again and we will have a very small boulder thanksgiving celebration. (i will NOT be a making a turkey, which really only serves as a prop for the real heroes of the meal - the side dishes. i will just make a much more manageable roast chicken.) i am very sad about not seeing my family, as i am sure the rest of america is too…. BUT it does give me the opportunity to use my grandmother’s kitschy turkey plates which always make me smile. HAPPY, HAPPY THANKSGIVING! x0x0x

(my grandmother, estelle)

when my grandmother died, my parents packed up all of her dishes, trinkets, costume jewelry, linens, letters and photos and put the boxes up in their attic where they sat for many years. one summer when i was home and my kids were in camp, my mother asked me to go through it all.  i call it my “v.c. andrews summer” as i sat up there like a flower in the attic (minus the incestuous sibling relationships and arsenic laced cookies) sorting and organizing and labeling everything for weeks. i was allowed out each evening to join everyone for dinner, but after i dropped the kids at camp each day, i climbed the skinny wooden ladder and crawled through the small opening at the top (bonking my head most days) and continued my work.  it was easy to focus because there was no cell reception and it was such a pain in the popper to come down that i just didn’t.

i made loads of fascinating discoveries: stacks of christmas cards from the 40’s, letters from my father describing my mother when they first started dating, a large collection of unmatched tea cups and beautiful, tiny booties and sweaters my grandmother must have crocheted for my father. but my favorite find was her turkey plates. i love hosting thanksgiving just so i can pull out these campy, regal turkeys and set my table, even if i have to hand wash them at the end of the night. HAPPY, HAPPY THANKSGIVING! x0x0x

click here for a cranberry sauce recipe