Thanksgiving 2004

Oh Thanksgiving, what a meal! When I woke this morning, there was fresh snow on the ground, the first of the season! It was the beginning of a wonderful day of cooking and relaxing, sitting by the fire sipping Calvados and snuggling with my husband and my son! The meal was wonderful, and so much fun to create! At about 11:00 this morning, I put about 20 sliced apples into the crock pot with a little olive oil, calvados and a jar of Williams Sonoma pecan pie mix. Then I added a very liberal dose of pumpkin pie spice and turned the pot onto high. The house smelled incredible all day long, like a wonderful apple pie! My parents arrived at about 6:30 heavily laden down with desserts! We started out with bacon wrapped scallops for an hors d'oeuvre, and continued with butternut squash soup with wild mushrooms and laced with calvados. This year, I brined the turkey for about 15 hours in a mixture of maple syrup ,brown sugar, kosher salt and lots of spices and then covered it inside and out with herb butter, and stuffed it with sweet potatoes and chestnuts. As it was roasting, I kept glazing it with a mixture of molasses and cider. It was so moist and it tasted simply wonderful! I made a sausage, onion and chestnut dressing, cranberry relish and brussels sprouts sauteed with bacon, butter and fresh thyme. My mother brought her amazing mashed potatoes (lots of sour cream, butter and salt and pepper!) and I prepared a creamed spinach with roasted hazelnuts and garlic! In addition to all of this ,there were scallopped oysters with cream and sweet potatoes with marshmallows, for my father who loves them!