Getting There

We shall have seven for Thanksgiving. Mr. Beagle was considering inviting more people, including some vegetarians, but thought better of it. It should be a nice, chill Thanksgiving.

Revised Thanksgiving Menu:

Deconstructed Turkey with Corn Bread Stuffing
Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Cranberry-Apple Sauce
Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta
Roasted Vegetables
Greens with Pecans and Goat Cheese

Apple Pie
Rhubarb-Apple Pie
Chocolate Caramel Walnut Tart

It was suggested on Chowhound that you may be able to keep mashed potatoes warm in a Crockpot. Interesting idea. Mr. Beagle decided that a test was in order, so he made mashed potatoes mid-afternoon which we will have with supper.

Oh, how could I forget: I picked up some new serving dishes last weekend at Crate and Barrel. I’ve been coveting these since last Thanksgiving. They seem impractical, but the swoopey sides function as handles. I also picked up a couple of small white bowls. Since we’ll only have seven people total, I’ll be able to use my white plates only and everyone will fit at one table! No buffet to set up! No furniture to move!

Last, some actual (as opposed to theoretical) food: homemade banana bread* with lots and lots of streusel. Mr. Beagle has a tendency to abandon bananas as soon as the last tinge of green goes to yellow, and I hate bananas. Quite a few steadily blackening bananas were building up and I just couldn’t let them all get composted. So, one mini loaf for a not-feeling-well Mr. Beagle and two to take to work for the kids. There hasn’t been much baking going on a the Beagle household of late, and I had forgotten how good a house could smell. Mr. Beagle could barely wait for his bread to cool off a little before scarfing.

*From the Joy of Cooking recipe. I would have used the marvelous King Arthur Flower Baker’s Companion, but their recipe called for yogurt or sour cream.

All over but the blocking

And it took my just over a month. Easy knit. Gorgeous color (though it’s much richer than the photo would have you believe). Sophisticated shape. It is, of course, the ubiquitous Hourglass Sweater, from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, done in Knitpicks Andean Silk. Now this is a sweater that I will wear. It might even be a sweater that I knit again in another color. Best of all, it’s the sweater that taught me how to knit in a seam (instead of sewing the seam later). I think that this technique will come in handy as I tackle Rogue next.

On the Farm

I’m a little hung up on chickens. Before I moved to California, I didn’t really realize that one could successfully raise laying chickens in urban (or, perhaps more accurately suburban) settings. Maybe having a couple of chickens in your back yard is a little eccentric, but I’m taken with the idea of having a little eggmobile a la Polyface farm in my backyard. The thought of really knowing that your eggs came from beaked, ground-scratching chickens is pretty comforting. Ah, but my chicken dreams will have to wait until I have a house, I think. Until then, I’ll just drool over the “tractor” gallery at The City Chicken.

On another pastoral note, I brain-stumbled onto a though about a book that my father used to read to us as children, One Horse Farm. The story, if I remember correctly, is about a farm horse that is replaced by a tractor. It is one of the children’s books that I remember most vividly, partially for the stylized fifties artwork in it. It turns out that the author and illustrator, Dahlov Ipcar, is not only still alive, but also still a working artist. I’m going to have to keep my eyes open for prints.

On the potato front, a coworker suggested I just drop my potato affectations (boiling with the skin on, ricing, and hot butter before warm cream to make my favorite fluffy and ethereal mashed potatoes), and do a rustic, skin-and-all mash. I just don’t know.

Time Flies

Thanksgiving is just over two weeks away. Let me repeat that: Thanksgiving is just over two weeks away. Yikes. Ever since Mr. Beagle and I moved far away from family, we’ve been hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for other California transplants. We’ve cooked turkey for as few as eight people and as many as 24 (which involved renting tables and rearranging our entire apartment and is not anything I’m eager to repeat, but was actually quite fun).

This year I’m not sure how many people are coming- the Evites haven’t even gone out yet, but I’m not too worried. Mr. Beagle and I have developed a pretty good system of preparing most everything ahead of time. You will notice my use of “most” in the preceding sentence. Mashed potatoes. They defy the advanced-preparation method. I’m stymied by the potatoes. And I have two weeks to figure them out.

Tentative Thanksgiving Menu:

Deconstructed Turkey with Corn Bread Stuffing (from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home - a really fantastic recipe, it solves the dried out bird problem and it looks amazing)

Gravy

Mashed Potatoes? Potato Gratin? Another ingenious way of preparing potatoes ahead of time?

Green Bean Casserole (yes, the kind made with mushroom soup and onions from a can- sophisticated, no, delish, yes)

Brussels Sprouts with Panchetta (super delish- even if you think you hate Brussels Sprouts)

And for dessert:
Mr. Beagle’s pies, most likely apple, pumpkin, and an as yet undetermined third pie.

The menu will surely be tweaked repeatedly over the next two (eek) weeks.