Woke up early. Had tea. Munched a granola bar. Baked a tart. (Wasn't that simple: roast the nuts in two batches because if you don't, the almonds always burn and you have to do it twice, then mix the filling, then pick through the cranberries again, wash them, put it all together, shoehorn it into the tart crust, check it multiple times to make sure the crust isn't burning before the filling is set, weasel it out of the oven without burning self with hot caramel, put it on the cooktop which serves as a rack of sorts, then move onto the next task.)
You will stab yourself in the eyes with knitting needles if I go on like this. Not everything got done, but it will be done by the time we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.
Tart finale, and stockpot:
Refrigerator Jenga started when two items dropped out to the floor while stacking in the latest ingredients. I took out three cups of cranberries to make the sauce. All I got in return (besides cranberry sauce and one box checked off the list) was a small spot on top of the 4# bag. I stuffed a small package of mushrooms there.
Cleaning and tidying happens in between meal organization and prep. That part is less fun.
This is actually a post about gravy. The rest of the world has finally reached my brilliant unventing of gravy: make it ahead. I have childhood memories of my mother juggling the flimsy aluminum turkey pan onto the cooktop. The turkey had been removed, the drippings sloshed everywhere. The pan was thin. I was often given the job of keeping the fluid moving so it wouldn't burn. Mom created alchemy with flour (Wondra), and whatever other magic she used to make delicious gravy. Yes, there were often lumps that had to be hunted down and squished, one by one. (Lumps are flour clumps that get coated too quickly with fat, and so don't absorb moisture from the pan. The Wondra was supposed to solve this by being a powdery flour preparation, but something often happened to have me chasing lumps with the wooden spoon.)
It took YEARS to engineer the gravy to be exactly like my mother's. I think mine is better. I combine multiple recipes, lots of seat of the pants substitutions, and a large portion of joy and love, that I have the memories of lumpy gravy with my family.
I can't find the Boston Globe recipe online. It was from 11/24/03 titled "Foolproof Gravy". It was by Sheryl Julian, who published a dumbed-down version of it yesterday in the newspaper. "Turkey Gravy From Scratch" by Julia Moskin, 11/19/08 (NYT) may be online but they won't let me in since I am not a subscriber.
The day before Turkey (tomorrow), I make a huge stockpot of turkey stock. Turkey necks, turkey wings, two packages of giblets will be the start. I roast them until golden and/or light brown at 375 degrees, then pop them gently into the stockpot. Skim the foam that materializes for about 20 minutes, then give up, and add the rest of the stuff. Carrots (2-3), onions (3), dried mushrooms (porcini), parsley, trimmings from carrots, parsnips, parsley stalks, peppercorns, bay leaves (2), minimal salt if any at all, thyme, and about 6 quarts of water. Ish. I partially cover it, because the water wicks up between the insert and the side of the pot, and splatters everywhere. The partial covering prevents this. Simmer for about 6 hours. It smells wonderful. It is something quiet and gentle to tend through the rest of the day's cooking. I like the brain tickle of hearing it blurple, and knowing I should check the heat.
When the stock is lovely and golden, and the vegetables are soft, I take out the insert, drain it all, and toss the vegetables. I put the meat on another plate, and let it cool. Then I cut off all the good turkey meat from the necks and the wings. Giblets that are mostly meat can also be used. I coarsely chop them in a food processor (I use a small Mouli), and reserve them til the next day. The stock goes in the refrigerator until Turkey Day.
I decant six cups of stock into a saucepan. I add a roux made of 1/3 c of flour and 1/3 c of butter that has been toasted earlier in the day. (Roux is a trade-off: the longer the toast, the less thickening it provides, but the better the color.) I am a total cheater, and also do what my mother did: I add enough Gravy Master (very small amount) to darken the gravy so it looks like what Mom made. Then all is right with the world. I stir in the Mouli'd meat, and it thickens the gravy quite nicely. Some years, I don't even add the pan drippings. Now I do, and horrors I don't defat the drippings. I scrape up the brown bits, ladle in some lovely turkey juice, stir it all together, and it is gravy. No one has had the courage or bad manners to complain. I love my gravy.
The rest of the stock, plus leftover meat, leftover vegetables, and leftover herby barley salad all become part of turkey soup. Leftover turkey soup is frozen for winter soothing.
Off I go now to watch Mr. E make me a crust for the Three Nut Cranberry tart. There may be dinner in there somewhere, too, and I also have to exercise this evening. Then I will clean some more, knit a few rows, fall into bed, wake up tomorrow, and REALLY get the cooking going.
Full tilt boogie to Thanksgiving! All preparations progressing. I tried to change up recipes (vegetables, dressing/stuffing, cranberry recipe). Anticipating insurrection and revolt from one or all guests, I finally (only) added a lovely local pork shoulder, and will call it a Day.
To soothe the frenetic pace, a few stitches are occasionally knit. I am working on a little boy sweater, Knitting Pure and Simple pullover pattern. The boy is born, is growing faster than I can knit, and I am hoping the 12 month size fits this Brogdingnagian child. I finished the body, bound off today, and will do neckband and sleeves next. It is far far easier than a blankety blank.
The counter is filling with raw materials. And the sweater is a beautiful yarn, Uxbridge sport weight SW merino, held double, dyed by Ballandskein Judy, in colorway Stormy Weather.
This small crane appeared in the house. I knew she was coming. She is early. I can never remember who is the Thanksgiving cactus, who is the Christmas cactus, and who claims to be the Easter cactus. Doesn't matter. The answer becomes easily obvious.
These are the kinds of plants you can never throw away. They don't die. And since my dead mother gave it to me over 20 years ago, you can tell she and I have been and will be in it for the long haul.
We got the snow. It was pretty. It was soaked with rain. All the plow boys were eager to make some money in the early season, so the roads were in good shape. I watched horizontal snow this afternoon for a brief time. Drama.
This weekend will be Thanksgiving ingredient acquisition activities. It will be problem solving. (How does one rake snow-covered leaves? How does a refrigerator hold all that needs to be colded? How will all the food turn into Thanksgiving?)
The lists are growing faster than I can manage them.
A Verb For Keeping Warm is tempting with more mittlets. There may be a theme here.
It was a tough day, and it is very hard to blog right now. Let's just say that it is snowing now, and that is good. It is going to turn to ice, and that is bad. At some point, it will turn to rain. (That is where the weather forecasters get fuzzy, as always.) There is still a bit of yard work to do, but the snow will melt by the weekend, and that is good. The run-up to Turkey will be cold, and that is good. But work never ends, surgery happens all the time, and that is bad.
I am dying to knit EVERYTHING, and this is the latest everything. Donna Kay designed it. She is good. So is the yarn.
It is Finullgarn, again with the good honest yarn that needs to be knit.
Let me leave you with something Mr. E showed me on the web. It has something to do with the StarTrek universe, with people who have too much time on their hands, and with the genius things they do with that time that endlessly amuses me. And others.
Kinda blew the numbering on the last post (yesterday). Fixed. Don't go back and read it again.
The young staff are baby booming. It is a remarkable stream of infants. Some need knitted objects. Some don't. I'm drowning in those who do.
I saw the Bounce baby blanket, and liked the pattern. Unfortunately, the hand-dyed kit was selling for ~$140. Of course I have a great deal of respect for the amount of time, energy, and cost associated with hand-dyed yarn. But I could not spend that much dinero on a baby blanket. I went to Webs to color-pick Cascade 220 superwash. With the addition of a main color (MC), I could get two blankets out of one set of colors. The cost was something less than half, so, yes, two for the price of one.
The first one was a sequence of 10 colors, reversed in the middle, and a honking number of ends to weave in. It was well-received by the mom. So when another baby rolled around, I had to do it again. This time, to halve the ends, I knit the colors in stripes of two each. So instead of one-one-one-one-one x 20 etc., it was two-two-two x 10. Not quite half the ends, but close. By the time it was done, I wanted to stick the proverbial needles in my eyes. I could barely finish the last color. But I did.
I haven't blocked that one yet. You will have to wait. But I have blocking pix of the first one. Do know that the quintessential problem with being a Yankee, is that I STILL have enough of the contrast colors to knit ANOTHER BABY BLANKETY BLANK. Which is how it has become known around these parts. It will have to be a different pattern. I'm betting they don't even make strait jackets anymore, which is what I would need if I did it again.
Last year, the annual agastache was an underwhelming flower. A 3 inch lavender spike with indistinct florets poked its way up towards the sun. I crossed it off my list of repeats.
Until the flowerhead matured. It was swarmed constantly by little yellow birds. They had it for breakfast. They had it for lunch. They invited their friends for dinner. This year, they threw goldfinch orgies on the plant that I bought for them.
So much for believing that the garden is about me.
And just for the sake of completeness, I found pix of the hemmed, finished rag rug -
The hem is woven of half thickness rag weft pieces, and then is folded over three times before being sewn to the body of the piece.
