Silver, which in fact we use every day in its tarnished state, has been polished. Unlike many I don’t care for the task; like many I admire the results.
New orange table mats, old Lenox china and red napkins from my mom’s house at the ready.
A white rose or two still blooms, so I may cut one to include with the pink, yellow and orange ones I plan to buy for a single tall arrangement in a cylindrical vase. Scads of visual impact when people arrive; easy to remove when we eat. Might add manzanita because California.
Otherwise I’ll add only wine and water glasses, and these beeswax tea lights in little glass hurricanes.
For one reason or another this is the first Thanksgiving I’ve hosted in some time, and I’ve been craving tradition. So we’re planning on mashed potatoes (one batch with butter, one with olive oil), roasted butternut squash with onions, steamed green beans with maybe lemon zest (if we’re in the mood), a salad because California and sourdough bread because also California. My brother will deep-fry a turkey, my sister will make cranberry sauce, we’ll have stuffing from a bag because Mom, and I will make gravy with my beautiful new fat separator. Borosilicate glass, hooray!
(I bought this Lenox gravy boat the year I was pregnant with my daughter, and chose this little gravy ladle when we siblings divided up my mother’s belongings as we on my patio, socially distanced. I love the sheer fact of memories.)
This year my niece and brother-in-law will make pies. That’s all I know. Not being a pie fan, I’m going to make this clementine cake, with, as my stepmother did several years ago, chocolate ganache. I am a terrible baker but nobody seems to mind.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends here who celebrate. If you’re in the mood, tell us your favorite dish. Until then, have a lovely weekend, and I wish you abundance in loved company.
20 Responses
Hello Lisa, There is no way I can match all this Thanksgiving festivity which you are preparing, but I will have two touches that are Taiwan exclusives. Cranberry steamed buns which I have in my freezer, and to cap off the evening, cranberry toothpaste.
–Jim
Cranberry steamed buns sound awesome! The kind that we fill here in Chinatown with Char Sui? Or the Taiwanese kind that are a little like tacos? The cranberry toothpaste, I’ll just politely demur;)
Happy Thanksgiving from Canada (where there’s a thin sheet of snow on the ground, ice on the canal, and Thanksgiving was celebrated over a month ago)! Your preparations look so festive – and happy family gathering/reunion to everyone. Some traditions should be perpetuated, even if they are slightly modified over the years.
Hello Canada! I am glad your Thanksgiving comes before ours does, and I hope you had a wonderful time:).
My mother’s wedding china. :-)
Aw. Use it in good health! And I love these shared points of tradition.
Happy Thanksgiving Lisa! I love seeing your china and recognize the pattern. We are having Thanksgiving at our farm where we’ll dine on Buffalo China which is creamy restaurant dishes which have held up for over 20 years out here.
Just looked up Buffalo China. How PERFECT for a farm house Thanksgiving dinner.
Plain cranberry sauce from whole cranberries – little sugar. No orange or spices. Is also amazing to top vanilla ice cream or Greek yoghurt.
YUM!
I love stuffing and gravy. This year we’re traveling up north to our daughter’s house.
Stuffing, gravy, cranberry and turkey in one bite. Can’t beat it! Hope you have had a wonderful visit.
Your table will be beautiful! I love the colors and textures of your place settings, plus the floral accents.
My grandmother always made roast turkey, greens, sweet potatoes (with raisins and marshmallows — the marshmallows are important!) and fruit salad (also with marshmallows :) ) — so that’s what Thanksgiving/Christmas will always be for me. For dessert, she always made pecan pie and the loveliest coconut cake that I’ve never quite been able to replicate… but as a teenager, at some point I found a recipe for “cranberry dream pie,” which is basically a no-bake cranberry cheesecake, and made that myself. It was a hit, and I’ve found myself thinking about that this year.
Your dinner and clementine cake sound divine! I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for your friendship and the community we have here. xox
Happy Thanksgiving, Lisa. We are big on tradition here so our menu doesn’t change much. My favorite side dish is my grandmother’s recipe for giblet dressing. I learned to make it from my mother and follow her handwritten instructions. No store bought bread cubes allowed. My mother attempted it once but we found the package in the trash and she was busted! Now, I just need my daughter or granddaughters to learn to make the dressing!
Legendary Thanksgiving tradition:). I bet someone will pick up the mantle!
Stuffing (cooked inside the bird!) and gravy are the most important for me, plus pumpkin pie. Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and/or squash, cornbread, plus one or more green dishes round out the carb- and butter-heavy menu . My mother’s silver came to me, which includes two serving spoons from my great-great-grandmother. That means that our grandsons will be at least the seventh generation, and possibly the eighth or ninth, to use them. Fortunately, keeping them in the old fabric-lined silver chest seems to obviate the need to polish them.
Hosting for our small family as usual. Just the two of us, our two sons and one DIL. Dry brining boneless skin-on turkey breast from a local farm. Hitting another local farm for whatever produce we can find before they close for the season. Wild rice. Fresh rolls of some sort — there’s a carmelized onion roll recipe I found and I always seem to be seduced by a new complicated side every year. Our traditional casual autumn leaf tablecloth. The dogs are getting jarred baby food pumpkin puree, with rice for a festive touch, on top of their regular diet.
Wishing everyone good travels and good times.
Well, there goes my grade. Though I’ve looked and looked [in between falling into rabbit holes] [and in the observed absence of brussels sprouts or other cabbage family members] for some implied/stated connection between “Cruciferous” and your text/photos, I have failed.
My best effort is that if I were you in hosting Thanksgiving this close to hosting The Wedding Weekend of the Century, I’d be Cross, and no doubt Bearing the Cross of Fatigue.
But those rabbit holes!
* At the sight of your dinner dishes, I blurted “Lenox Tuxedo!” to myself, then came to find Tuxedo was discontinued in 2020, replaced now by Lenox Eternal.
* I could not see the rose blossom for the sepals in the same frame! Sepals! Such a noble life they live. First holding the bud closed tight, until. Next supporting the heavy blossom, until the sepals are the last ones standing after the blossoms droop and fall to the ground, leaving the noble five pointed star. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRh0Hm-Sx0SW1tbOZBCIfvYrl4e9Cve_RSx-g&s
Happy Thanksgiving to you, Lisa, and to all of us reading here!
So pleased to see a recipe for clementine cake – I just may give that a whirl in anticipation of Christmas.
We had a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving subbing in cereal for the toast but holding fast to the popcorn!
Loved seeing your silver – my grandmother had that same pattern.
Happy Thanksgiving, Lisa. Your festive meal sounds fabulous on your family china.
We also have the traditional turkey plus a prime rib roast which is becoming the traditional add-on.
My mothers china bought in Germany features largely. Remembering many holiday meals using this china is very sentimental. Remembering the past and watching the next generation celebrate continues the much-loved family traditions.
And now it’s on to Christmas.