Day 7 and counting...

I feel rejected... no one came to have a lima bean lunch with me! Oh well.

On to Thanksgiving... This morning John checked out his charcoal supply since we always cook the turkeys on the charcoal grills - our only variation to the Gourmet menu. Not only is the turkey absolutely DElicious done this way but it frees up the oven for other things. I will tell you the problem with this is that John tends to be VERY parsimonious with the charcoal; so much so that now we assign a "watcher" to make sure John not only starts the charcoal when he should but uses ENOUGH charcoal so the turkeys actually get done. (I did check - we have lots of charcoal, not just the 3 lumps John "thinks" he needs.)

One thing Gourmet has added in the last few years is a suggested time line for cooking. Today's activity was the Cranberry, Apple, Walnut Conserve. I actually got it done as you can see and my test sample rates it EXCELLENT! Nice and tart. If it's half as good on T-Day, it will be a winner.

The cake next to the conserve is not part of the menu. Just felt the least I could do was make a dessert for the first of our T-Day guests (expected momentarily). Joe left from Pensacola, FL yesterday morning and made it to friends in Hickory NC. This morning he & George left for here. The postmen have nothing on Joe & George. Not only have they driven through this major rain storm the east coast got today but when they got to Binghamton the main road north to our place was closed. Now they're trying to reach us by circling west and coming down to us from the north. While I'm waiting I'm writing this. Cooking is done for the day (also baked bread & made beef stew w/limas - somehow I think they'll be so happy to get here they won't even notice the limas.)