The peak of farmer's market season has certainly passed, but I do like a good challenge. That's why I'm all gung ho about cooking up a homemade and home grown Thanksgiving feast this year.
I mean, it's the first Thanksgiving dinner I've ever had the opportunity to tackle, so why not make it as difficult for myself as I possibly can?
Since Christmas presents a problem for my fiance and I - in six years we still will not have had a Christmas together, our families being spread out as they are - we try to go all out for Thanksgiving.
That being said, I still almost wet myself when he turned to me one night in the kitchen and said, "Why don't we have Thanksgiving here?"
I glanced at the sink, full of a few days' worth of dirty dishes, and mentally ran through the last week's dinner menu, a la Ami: pre-cooked chicken fingers, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, pasta and shrimp, pasta and sausage, cold cereal.
Yes, dear, why don't we?
I strategically agreed, thinking there was no way my mother, an excellent cook, would agree to a Syracuse Thanksgiving. My family loves, LOVES to eat. You don't mess with the one day a year that celebrates eating. You just don't.
But she did. First Ting messed with it, and now my mother - I was shocked. Sure, the idea of having a week's worth of leftover turkey, pie and stuffing exhilerated me, but my excitement was severely countered with the horror of not only preparing the meal but cleaning up afterward.
But it's too late, now. I've already agreed. So I thought I would at least take the opportunity to fix a feast of locally grown foods.
The turkey should pose little problem, thank you Plainville Turkey Farms. So with the meat of the meal squared away, I have to focus on finding not only local substitutes for Stove Top stuffing, instant mashed potatoes and cranberry jelly, but it has to meet or exceed my family's standards.
Granted, accepting cranberry jelly and Stove Top as the end-all be-all of Thanksgiving dining may be setting the bar low in and of itself to some more sophisticated diners, but when it's what you know, it's what you love.
And at least I have nowhere to go but up.
At the end of the month, my goal is to have a list of locally grown and manufactured foods to fill the most critical of Thanksgiving tables - delivering a delicious feast for my family would be a bonus.
