Thanksgiving Plans

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I know retailers like to name the day after Thanksgiving as the start of the holiday season, but for me, it’s always been the Monday before Turkey Day, mostly because traditionally I’ve either been 1) cleaning the house like Cinderella on amphetamines because we’re going to have twenty-some guests or 2) planning for a 12+ hour drive to Northern Virginia to celebrate with family. If you’re hosting, today’s the day to get your shopping done, and if you’re traveling, better make sure those tires are properly inflated and the oil is changed.

Of course, the last two Thanksgivings have been different for most of us. In 2020, the kids and I all managed to be together - including Youngest’s Handsome Boyfriend and the Sailor on leave - but, of course, no other guests. Last year was the smallest celebration I’ve ever done; the Maine Millennial and I shared the day with honorary Red Celia Wakefield and her delightful husband (and two Shih Tzus who were in ecstasies about the cooked turkey meat mysteriously falling from the sky into their mouths.)

This year will be another change-up: with Victoria headed for the Red-Headed Boyfriend’s parents’ and Spencer and his sweetheart staying in Virginia, it was just Youngest and I. We’ve accepted an invitation from a good friend, so this year, all I have to do is make a dessert and drive forty minutes! 

How about you, Reds? What are your Thanksgiving plans?

 

RHYS BOWEN: I always have it easy at Thanksgiving. I’m in Arizona. Clare hosts and usually it’s warm enough to sit outside. Clare lays lovely tables by the pool. We play outdoor games. And all I have to do is make the dreaded green bean casserole. I don’t like it but it reminds Tim of his childhood so I grit my teeth and open mushroom soup. This year I’ve found Trader Joe’s portobello mushroom soup which tastes better and I’ll try to find fresh green beans.  Apart from that I bring wine. 

 

We will have 11 family members which will be lovely. Kids coming home from college, Dom and Mer flying in. Anne driving with dog. Can’t wait!

 

LUCY BURDETTE: We’re going to be very low-key this year with two friends coming over for dinner. I’ll make turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and I’m going to try a chocolate peanut butter pie for something different. We’ll see a lot more relatives over the month of December so we don’t mind something smaller for now. 

 

HALLIE EPHRON: I’m so looking forward to sharing Thanksgiving with my daughters and grandkids. Turkey, Pepperidge Farm stuffing (made to package directions, please), mashed potatoes, green beans, a vanilla custard pie and an apple pie. I’m waiting to be assigned my duties (probably pies) since we’ll be at Daughter #2’s house.

We never had a tradition of sweet potatoes and marshmallows OR of green bean casserole, but I’d be happy with anything in return for family time. 

 

 

 

JENN McKINLAY: I’m on deadline so I’ll be buying dessert instead of baking (tragic!) but it’s mini bundts from Nothing Bundt Cakes so I’ll still be welcome at my MIL’s. To help out, Hub is deep frying the turkey and my SIL is bringing sides. Hooligan 1 is breaking bread with his Plus 1’s family and Hooligan 2 is working but will pop in. Weird to have these 20-somethings with lives of their own! But truthfully, I’m not a big Thanksgiving fan. Turkey is okay. Stuffing and cranberry sauce (must be in the shape of the can) are awesome but otherwise…meh. My ideal Thanksgiving is being on vacation with my people somewhere tropical with the flag up on my chair, a good book in my hand, and a tasty surf breaking on the beach in front of me :) 

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Ouch, that’s a bit of a sore subject at our house. The kids want to go to my aunt’s, which is our traditional Thanksgiving we haven’t done in three years. I would love to see my aunt (who’s in her eighties) and my cousins and their kids. Rick, however, thinks we still should not be doing any gatherings. So maybe we will be home with a Stouffer’s chicken pot pie… Not cooking for two people, I can tell you.

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, two kids and two grandkids coming. I am so devotedly happy to see them (and we might get a glimpse of the girlfriend!!), but it’s still a tad scary. But I am eager to make a turkey, it’s easy and smells SO good, and stuffing stuffing stuffing and fresh cranberries and champagne and many pies and encouraging people that the brussels sprouts are REALLY GOOD JUST TRY ONE. I will conquer the gravy this year, I have all the faith.

 

JULIA: Now it's your turn, dear readers. What are your Thanksgiving plans? 

Food Memories @LucyBurdette

Lucy's mom, ready for the party

LUCY BURDETTE: With Thanksgiving in the rear view mirror and Christmas coming fast, it’s not hard to drift back to memories of earlier days. Especially memories of food and family. 

We grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey. My father had a long commute into New York City to his job, leaving my mother as the chief cook after her days teaching elementary school, and taking care of four kids. She didn’t love to cook, but like the rest of us, she loved to eat. She also loved the holidays, when we got together with her sisters and their families. That food was never fancy, but it was good and plentiful, usually anchored by a ham or a turkey. If it was a ham, my aunt Barbara made a mean baked beans dish, and always two kinds of potato salad, one with onions and hard-boiled eggs for most people, and one without for the fussy kids. With turkey, we'd have mashed potatoes and gravy and all the trimmings.

A summer party with Mom, Aunt Carol, and my sisters Susan and Martha

My mother also loved a party. The times Mom most welcomed assistants in the kitchen was while baking cookies for the holidays and preparing finger food for a party--we often hosted a holiday open house for neighbors and friends. She spent days making tiny triple-decker finger sandwiches, choux puffs stuffed with tuna or shrimp salad, fruit salad piled into a watermelon shell carved like a basket, and spritz butter cookies in various shapes and colors. I’m borrowing some of those to use for a funeral reception in A DISH TO DIE FOR. Here's Hayley helping her mother prepare:

“Does old-time recipes mean head cheese, and Spam, and vegetables out of a can mixed with Miracle Whip?” asked Sam. He seemed to love serving as my mother’s first assistant, but he loved teasing her most of all.

“Let’s hope not,” my mother said cheerfully. “We’ll focus on finger foods, since most people won’t be sitting.” She clipped the list of recipes to a stand on the counter. “I asked Cole’s Peace Bakery to slice some loaves of bread lengthwise.” She pulled four loaves of sliced bread out of the brown paper bags on the counter. “My mother used to make little three-decker sandwiches when her friends were coming to lunch,” she explained to Sam. “The fillings were always different, like egg salad in one layer and tuna fish or cream cheese with olives in another.

“At Christmas time she had her bakery dye some of the bread loaves red and some green, so the layers of the sandwiches were multicolored. Do you remember, Hayley?” Her face looked a little melancholy, and her voice was wistful. We’d both deeply mourned the loss of my sweet grandmother.  

How about you Red family? Are you full of holiday food and family memories this time of year?