My dears!!
This is a long overdue Thanksgiving day recap. I had a child care emergency last week that sucked all my energy away from blogging, but here I am, situation sorted, and ready to go!
Anyway, Thanksgiving at Chez MF was fabulous! I hope you all had nice T-G’s as well. I’ll start my recap two nights earlier, with the brining of the bird. On Tuesday morning, I assembled all the non-perishable ingredients for the brine:
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| Brine Ingredients |
They included allspice, caraway, cloves, mustard seeds, cinnamon, star anise, black peppercorns, honey, maple syrup, kosher salt, onions, and oranges. Not pictured but included later were a bouquet garni and parsley stalks. Tuesday night, I chucked everything into my trusty Homer bucket, and submerged da bird.
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| Try as I might, those drumsticks insisted on being periscopes! |
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| Whipped Nirvana |
I set the table the night before, keeping with my favorite Thanksgiving color - orange! I brought those yellow frondsy things for $4 at the supermarket - I liked the pop of sunshine they brought to the table. The mini white pumpkins and pears are all plastique, from Tar-gay. I added the clementines that anchored everyone’s napkins as an afterthought, but they did fabulous double duty as palate cleansers after the meal!
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| I love me some orange...and clementine. |
I was feeling pretty good when I took this next photo. It was 11:00am, my cheddar crackers were baked and ready to go, the turkey was coming to room temperature preparatory to entering the oven, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was on the telly. Life was good!
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| Feeling ready! |
I made a cocktail that has rapidly become an old favorite: Martha’s Apple Cranberry Ginger Punch. In the past I’ve offered guests a variety of drink options and let them choose, but this time round I thought it would be fun and festive to start off the party with a particular cocktail. I had extra cranberries left over from the punch ingredients and decided to garnish the cocktail glasses with them.
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| Drink me. |
They were delicious.
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| Don't mind if I do! |
Nigella Lawson’s recipe for a Spiced and Super Juicy Turkey never fails to disappoint. She has you paint the turkey with maple syrup and melted butter, and the bird always emerges from the oven with a Saint Tropez tan and the most crackling skin. YUM.
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| Le turkey, bronzed and beautiful! |
At this point, things really started happening, so unfortunately, I have no pictures of the spread before it was devoured. But I can show you my favorite way to wrap up a feast:
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| Closing ceremonies. |
Nothing beats some strong French press coffee, biscotti, and a little Widow (aka Veuve Clicquot) to put the perfect cap on a day of thanks.
Other than, of course, eating hot turkey sandwiches in your pjs at 7:00pm (originally I wrote "of course, hot turkey sandwiches in your pjs" before realizing that without a verb, that sounds like a messy and unfortunate way to end the day).
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| Isn't this a joy-inducing sight?? |
I hope all of y’all had nice Thanksgivings. I’m going to scoot and go work on some overdue posts, so check back soon to see what else I have up!
xoxo,
MF
The sunny flower (yellow frondsy thing) is called Solidago, just in case you need to find it again ;)
ReplyDeleteThat cocktail sounds delish!
Looks like a beautiful and delicious spread.
Thanks for the flower information Anna! And thanks for your compliments on the bevie and spread - that coming from la maitresse of "Anna Dishes Daily" is a great compliment! xx MF
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