Hurray, I love Thanksgiving. We haven't hosted Thanksgiving since 2003, when I attempted, on Mark Bittman's recommendation, to spatchcock a turkey. (<--note to the curious: a bad idea)
This year I procured a turkey from a farmer (a real live not-too-mutated-to-walk-around turkey, only I suppose it is a real dead turkey now, with no more walking around in its future). I found his blog through Amy Welborn's comments and was surprised to find that we went to the same school at the very same time for undergrad. I am going to make a huge pile of cornbread stuffing with celery and onions and fresh sage and walnuts, and bake a bit of it in the bird because it gets so tasty that way. And if I only put in a little, we won't have to fear the campylobacter, wouldn't you say? esp. since it was a small farmer's clean-living turkey? Then at the table I will say, "Oh, look, something shiny!" and stealthily score an extra helping of the stuff that was in the bird, because I'm aboveboard and openhanded like that. Or perhaps I will say,"You look like you need more salad!" and pass the salad bowl instead of the stuffing bowl. I am not a fan of green salad on Thanksgiving, but we're having green salad anyway. My FIL thinks you can't have a celebratory meal without green salad so green salad there will be.
I was going to make cornbread tonight for stuffing, but I have just discovered that we only have white cornmeal. I think if one attempts to make cornbread stuffing with white cornbread, the Thanksgiving police descend with their megaphones. "Put down the pseudo-cornmeal and no one gets hurt!" they shout as they swarm the house. Then they take the offending party off to the Thanksgiving gulag, where the meals include all the misguided stuffings known to man: gingerbread stuffing (what was Nigella Lawson thinking?), cheese Danish stuffing (okay, I made that one up), and enough white cornbread stuffing to teach the guilty cook the error of her ways.
Not wishing to visit the Thanksgiving gulag myself, I plan to purchase some yellow cornmeal this very night.
I am still thinking about what else I can do in advance. This is in contrast to Thanksgivings past, when I have had a timetable drawn up that starts on Sunday. I think I'll do the sweet potatoes tonight: I puree them and add orange juice, crushed pineapple, pecans, a pinch of nutmeg, a smidge of brown sugar, and enough butter to clog an elephant's aorta. Butter is the key to Thanksgiving dinner, I think. It's not the turkey or the pecan pie; it's the butter.
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Well. It is much later now and I still only have white cornmeal in my house. I did not make sweet potatoes and Elwood just tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You wanted to get to bed early." Probably a good plan, getting to bed early. Tell me, please, about your favorite stuffing, and about the weirdest stuffing you've ever seen. I'm curious about what else they're serving in the Thanksgiving gulag.
Oh, PS to PWK: it's mama, and not mama. Mama sounds pretty high-falutin' in these parts; mama is all I ever hear. And PPS to Tracy and anyone else who wondered: pink pancakes weren't very pink, and they were well-received.
ETA: not sure why I am feeling so solidly traditional this year. Maybe I'm too distracted to make anything other than the Thanksgiving meal I can make in my sleep. Well, not in my sleep, perhaps, but at least while busy thinking about Cronbach's alpha. For Thanksgivings past I have made cranberry sauce with pearl onions and chipotles in adobo, but this year it's a straight-up no-surprises meal. I would never complain about being served stuffing from a box, even though I do like to make my own. I save my complaining for "innovations" that ought not to have seen the light of day, like pumpkin-cranberry cheesecake tartlets.
