HALLIE EPHRON: Happy Thanksgiving! We're putting this together the weekend before, because today most of us will be "off duty" and on family/friends time.
I’ll be in Brooklyn having Thanksgiving dinner with my daughters and son-in-law and my two grand grands (3 and 6 years old). It will be a wonderful exercise in chaos and overeating.
Here's my granddaughter at Thanksgiving three years ago admiring the pies. She's got her eye on the vanilla custard pie, her dad's favorite and the one we added to the rotation in his honor.
Otherwise, our Thanksgiving dinner menu is pretty much what I grew up with:
- Butternut squash soup topped with toasted almonds, scallions, and a dollop of sour cream
- Roast turkey with Pepperidge Farm stuffing
- Gravy
- Green beans
- Mashed turnip (rutabaga)
- Mashed potatoes
- Cranberry sauce (canned, both with and without whole berries)
- Pies: Pumpkin (with whipped cream), apple (with vanilla ice cream), and vanilla custard
- Prosecco and sparkling cider
What I miss from my table growing up was a casserole of sweet potatoes and sliced apples, baked with maybe brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon, and probably something like apple cider. I’ve never been able to duplicate it so I'm not sure what the ingredients were. If anyone has a recipe that sounds right, please post!
Where will you be, with whom, and what’s on your table?
LUCY BURDETTE: I haven’t even gotten that far, can you imagine? We’ll be having two feasts, one with John’s tennis pals and one with our neighbors. I will do what I’m told! I have a new oven waiting for me--after 3 years of limping along--so I’m looking forward to lots of desserts! Maybe a pumpkin roll stuffed with whipped cream, or maybe go off the reservation and make a chocolate cream pie?
RHYS BOWEN: We’ll be celebrating as usual with daughter Clare and her family as well as daughter Anne from LA. Our menu will be, as usual. It will be at her house so she’ll be doing most of the cooking.
Roast turkey (organic, humanely raised)
Two types of stuffing: sausage meat and vegetarian
Mashed potatoes
Green bean casserole (at the request of son-in-law)
Roast sweet potatoes
Cranberry sauce
Gravy
Apple crumble, pumpkin pie, cream, ice cream, English custard.
JENN McKINLAY: I will be driving to Flagstaff with the Hub and the Hooligans to play in the snow, hopefully, and plan to eat at a restaurant in the mountains, where someone else does the cooking and the cleaning! A perfect day!
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, good question! And right now, writing this, I don’t know! But no matter what, or where, there’ll be stuffing, because even the fragrance of it and roasting turkey makes me swoon with happiness. One Thanksgiving, Jonathan and I decided to skip it, because we had no plans, but then, the day before, I couldn't stand it and raced to the grocery, and got EVERYTHING! Yum.
We tend to rotate Thanksgiving; hosting one year, traveling to DC for a family holiday the next, and guesting with friends the third. I must say I LOVE the last; it means I get to watch the Macy’s Parade and the Kennel Club show once every three years!DEBORAH CROMBIE: I will be just one day home from London, still jet-lagged, so happy not to be cooking. We will go to my my Finnish aunt, who took over our big family Thanksgiving years ago when my mom got too overwhelmed by it. She does everything ahead except the turkey and gravy--much more organized than I am! I'll bring wine, and my signature cranberry relish if I can manage to make it. We'll have turkey, gravy, cornbread/sage stuffing (dressing, we say in the south!), sweet potato casserole, and hopefully some other veggie sides. The last couple of years my daughter's sauteed Brussell's sprouts with shallots have been highly requested. Hopefully afterwards we'll get in a visit with my in-laws as well, as they are only a few blocks from my aunt.
HALLIE: So where will you be and what will you be eating? (And Debs, hope you'll post your cranberry relish recipe!)
