For Jamie...

my fellow foodie and neighboUr to the north (WAY north), who always wants to know what's the menu for thanksgiving.

So, this year:

Appetizers, by special demand, will be my sausage stuffed mushrooms and a brie. Can't give you a recipe on the mushrooms because I never know what's ending up in it till I start throwing it together. I fry up the sausage and mushroom stems with garlic and some wine and then add other stuff and top with a bit of pastured cheese (we use Dubliner). Maybe some smoked oysters or smoked red sockeye salmon to go along with the Brie too.

Main course will, of course, feature turkey (Cindi) and a ham (Dave). There will be mashed taters with gravy, Mildred Weedon's cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce (left over from St. Paul's sausage supper, where they make it from scratch!), sweet tater soufflé, and green beans. David's baking up some bread of some sort, but so are we. We're making paleo cheddar biscuits. Major yum. And they work great cold to hold mayo and leftover turkey for sandwiches. Of course lots of good Kerry Gold butter to slather on the breads.

Desserts will be a chocolate cake (Dave), a pecan pie (David), and Cindi and I are making a pumpkin pie (Abel James' recipe - just google Fatburningman pumpkin pie!). Also a dish of spiced sweet pecans.

We're HOPING to serve a great organic wine we discovered a week ago, but the place was sold out of it this week. Maybe it will be back before the weekend? It was called Our Daily Red. Cindi and I both loved it. Only 12% alcohol and though not sweet, it was the grapiest wine I've ever tasted. It was fabulous. If we can't get that, we'll offer a couple other organic wine choices. We've lately discovered how ridiculously processed commercial wine is (and here in the States they don't even have to tell you what they put in it; did you know they put DYE in commercial wine??? Ugh.). Of course, there will also be plenty of freshly ground brewed coffee (we favor 8 O'clock whole bean).

Sitting down to the feast this year will be a rather smaller than usual crowd: Aunt Sandy and her son, Russ, Dave (Opa), David and Meaghan, Lydia and Henry (well, he has to sit off to the side in his high chair), and Cindi and I. Granddaughter Lydia makes something like the seventh generation that has feasted together at that table and sampled pies from the "breakfront" (which both came from Cindi's grandmother's grandmother). Cool, eh? Oh, and we'll be using this for our table prayer again:

Thanksgiving Table Prayer

And that's about a wrap. So, now you know, Jamie!