Connections: Stuffed Turkeys
Thank goodness President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Congress to set Thanksgiving permanently on the fourth Thursday in November so that we can follow an annual routine. If Thanksgiving were allowed to fall pell-mell on any random day of the week — like Christmas does — I am not sure how we would get ourselves organized.
I get so wrapped up in the winter holidays that everything else goes by the boards. Television, newspapers, Facebook? I have no idea what’s going on in the world, beyond the rounds of the Thanksgiving marathon.
I’ve already spent hours and hours food shopping, not only doing a number at the supermarkets but going to the Green Thumb farm stand in Water Mill and Citarella in Bridgehampton. I’ve ordered the turkey from the Mecox Dairy Farm and the oysters and clams from the Seafood Shop in Wainscott, and there are still more shopping trips to come, including Goldberg’s for rye bread, which I want to try in the stuffing for a change, and Breadzilla for sweet treats.
Things are especially festive around here this year, with two of my grandchildren and their parents visiting from Canada. We don’t usually pay very much attention to Hanukkah in this household, but it’s also rather nice that it falls on Thanksgiving this time so we don’t have to be confused about when to celebrate it.
We’ve been eating for a week. The refrigerator and pantry are brimming: aged goat cheeses, pumpkin bread pudding, chicken pot pie, gravlax, whitefish salad, bacon scones, Craig Claiborne’s Chinese green-bean salad, Edward Giobbi’s pork chops in piquant sauce. . . .
My husband has become fixated on the new Jerusalem cookbook, and he treated us the other night to a delicious chicken-and-bulgar dish with a yogurt and cucumber sauce; he also took advantage of some wonderful extra-late-season local tomatoes, slow-roasting them for an unusually tasty pasta dish. We have had paté mousse as an appetizer and wine with dinner, too — and I won’t mention the mammoth box of fancy cookies my daughter brought home for the kids. I will know for sure if all this eating has been bad for my health when I gather my strength and step up on the bathroom scale (perhaps I’ll leave that till next month), but I’ve been enjoying myself immensely.
And swiftly, of course, Christmas is approaching. How dare it fall on Wednesday this year? What will we working folks do? Will we shake things up at The Star and publish on Friday so that everyone can go home early on Christmas Eve, then come back the day after Christmas to finish the job? I’m pleased to say this is a conundrum the editor, not I, will have to solve.