On Hosting Thanksgiving.

It's 7:35am on Black Friday Morning [really, do they need to name the day "Black Friday?" Maybe this year it will be Red Friday b/c no one is financially solvent] and my parents have just departed back to Cape Cod. For some reason, on a day off from school, I'm up this early and so why not do a little post?

My parents sold the house they've lived in in Hopkinton for the past 16 years on November 4th and have not yet closed on their new house on the Cape, so, as the oldest of the six children, and the only one with a house that can hold my family, it fell on me to host Thanksgiving. I had been looking forward to it, certainly. Even though we fought brutally as children, we actually really enjoy each other's company now that we range from 21-31, and, with all of us scattered from Maine to Buffalo and lots of places in between, it's rare that we get to see each other. Plus, my sister Megan's boyfriend was here visiting her from Pakistan (where he's been a correspondent for Time) via London, and, plus #2, we also invited Steve's parents to come up because their children are all scattered too. All told, it was dinner for 12 [which ended up being 11 b/c my brother Mike didn't come b/c he was sick] and I have to say, overall, it went rather well.

What I would do again:

1) Fry a turkey.

My mom gave Steve a turkey fryer for Christmas last year, and, although he's used it on a boy's weekend, I've never had one, and neither had the majority of our dinner guests. Aside from the ghastly $70 it cost for the 6 gallons of peanut oil needed for the operation, the result was AMAZING. Nearly everyone preferred it to the roasted oven turkey [which was also excellent]. I made my own rub of salt, pepper, oregano, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and a healthy dose of green chile powder from Hatch, New Mexico. We injected the turkey with small amounts of a marinade made from beer, butter, worcestershire, and tabasco. I recommend this process [as long as you do it outside and have an intrepid significant other willing to drop a 13 lb bird into 5 gallons of 350 degree oil out on your patio]

2) Make pumpkin chiffon pie

We were dinner guests at a colleague's a week or so ago, and she made this amazing light and fluffy pumpkin pie that tasted more like a custard. It was incredible and I immediately asked for the recipe. I'll post it below--point of order--make sure the egg whites are really stiff and allow the pie to chill for 4+ hours. The result is divine, and I think when I finish the post, I'm going to have a piece for breakfast. Yum!

Ingredients
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 cup milk
2 slightly beaten egg yolks
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 egg whites
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream, whipped
1 graham cracker crust

Combine the first 7 ingredients in saucepan. Stir in milk, egg yolks, and pumpkin. Cook and stir over medium heat till mixture boils (gently) and gelatin dissolves. Remove from heat and chill until partially set.

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat to stiff peaks. Fold into pumpkin mixture with whipped cream. Pile into crust and chill until firm.

3) Make my own Cranberry Sauce

It will never come out of a can in my house again. SO, easy! Just boil some cranberries, water, and sugar [the simple version, I also added grated ginger, orange peel, the juice of one orange, and toasted pecans to one version] and then simmer until it's the consistency you like.

4) Make only a big plate of fancy cheese and crackers for hors d'oeuvres.

No one overdid it on pre-gaming SO by the time the 2:30 meal rolled around, everyone was starving.

5) Use my fiestaware

I contemplated busting out the wedding china, but at the end of the day, not hand washing 12 place-settings is OK with me.

6) Polish my mother-in-law's silver

Steve's mom gave me alot of antique Bischof and Oschwald family silver this summer so I decided to polish it up for the holiday. It was lovely, and made her happy to see it used.

7) Go for a post-Thanksgiving meal stroll in the woods.

We've lived here since May and were unaware of the enormous network of well marked trails in the woods behind our house. We were also unaware of the old, burned out and junked Chevy directly behind our house too. Interesting. My youngest sister, a criminal justice major, was so intrigued by the mystery of the car that she pretty much has a CSI Maine show planned ;).

8) Get up at 6am to go into Portland and Register People for the Turkey Day 4-Miler

My head track coach has been hosting a Thanksgiving Day race for 27 years in Portland. It's a huge fundraiser for our women's team at USM. This year 1200 people ran--it was really fun to check them in and talk to people about it, and to see how many families made running the race a tradition.

I was going to make a comparable list of what I wouldn't do again, but there wouldn't be much on there. We had a really nice day, and I'm thankful for both mine and Steve's families. We have great and generous parents and I look forward to more combined Thanksgivings. It was really nice to not split the day, or alternate it yearly in order to see both sets of parents. Solution--just have everybody over!! ;)

The pre-dinner table:

Jack-o-lantern graveyard--one of the loveliest sights I've ever seen [no exaggeration]

Bruce, a very nice older gentleman who is in my History of Maine class (and who happens to live down the street from me), thought to let me in on a little local Halloween secret. Every year, at a remote graveyard on North Gorham Road on the way to Windham [about 10 minutes from my house], someone carves and lights over 300 jack-o-lanterns and puts them all over the cemetery--on graves, on tombs and monuments, on the ground, all over. It's technically anonymous, but most people think it's the people across the street. There's no advertising, just tradition and local custom. If you know about it or happen upon it, you go; if not, you miss out. They've apparently been doing it for years.

I went at dusk, just after the pumpkins were lit, and it was one of the loveliest sights I've ever seen. All the faces and designs on the jack-o-lanterns were different. The pumpkins were little and huge and every size and shape in between. I walked around wide-eyed with such a profound sense of wonder. I literally have never seen anything like it, have never imagined anything like it. It was literally magical time, the in-between time [dusk] where you think literally anything could happen. So much thought and reverence went in to this one act that it makes one believe that the world is still a good place, the kind of place you want to raise children in, the kind of place you hope this country can be, the kindness of strangers to strangers--dead and living.

The pumpkins flickered, people wandered around and were just totally entranced by the magic of the scene. They stumbled in from neighboring houses, parked cars on the side of the road, and wandered in wide eyed. Some took pictures, others just gazed from pumpkin to pumpkin, some brought children, others wandered alone. People smiled at one another, acknowledging mutual amazement.

The graveyard is old, most of the graves from the 18th and 19th century, some from the 20th, and honestly, what better way than to honor their spirits on the eve before All Souls Day. I'll include some pictures for you, but they in no way do it justice. They record the sight, but not the spirit.

I rushed home [Steve was awaiting trick-or-treaters in my absence] and told Steve to get in the car and go--that he couldn't miss this sight. He didn't believe me at first, I think, but he came home a believer. There was magic in Gorham that night, and I got to see it. I feel so lucky. I hope you get to see it one day. I cannot remember ever feeling so transported by a scene.