S. Worthen | Weblog

Not only did I get Thanksgiving last weekend, but I had it yesterday as well. hungry_pixel generously cooked us Thanksgiving again, replete with potatoes, parsnips, carrots, mashed swedes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and apple crumble.

There wasn't a turkey, but then - as I learned last week - the non-frozen variety is hard to come by when Christmas is still this far away. I called a few supermarkets to reserve one last week, but all they had was frozen. Some were planning on having fresh turkey in stock on the day before American Thanksgiving but - for those of us celebrating early - that was a little too late to be useful. I rashly reserved one with my local butcher's. When I told him, C. reminded me of easterbunny's horror story of reserving a turkey with a local butcher's and paying a small fortune for it on showing up to claim it. Fortunately, we did just fine, especially given it was a turkey with the sort of adjectives attached which usually raise its price.

One feature which both of my American Thanksgivings this year lacked was pie. I do love pie, but then I had had an excess of it at the October pie-off. Even though most of them were savory pies, and none of them were fruit. But pies - even in America - aren't already fruit. Pecan pie is a staple of the Thanksgiving repertoire. Sweet potato pie is less common, but still delicious. I was reminded of it by a rare email from an American historical foods blog, part of their "Not to be Forgotten" project. Here's their post on a sweet potato pie recipe from an 1881 cookbook.

Home again from the House of Many Cats, we have begun the post-kitchen rearrangement of the house. If we keep at it, we may yet be mostly unpacked by Christmas.