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cranberry, cranberry sauce, dinner, farm, good eats, gratitude, organic, spices, sugar, Thanksgiving, turkey, wild turkey
This Thanksgiving is the first Thanksgiving my family and I have had in 3 years. For the past 3 years we had a show the weekend following Thanksgiving with set up on Thanksgiving Day. We always had a great time with our friends from the Harvest Festival (Sue, Joann, Sally and Debbie) at Il Fornaio with a fab Thanksgiving Dinner of Minestrone Soup, foccacia, and a couple Cosmopolitans. We miss them, but this year we started a new tradition – Thanksgiving on the Farm!
My brother, Nick, and my sister-in-law Rebecca called last week and invited my mother, father and I over for dinner on the Farm. We were so excited; we knew it would be relaxed and easy breezy, so we were very happy to do this. My mother was worried about what type of turkey we would be eating. Not worried it was organic or anything, but more along the lines that Nick went out and hunted a wild turkey. She heard rumors that wild turkey had a tendency to be dry and stringy and she said that is not a Thanksgiving turkey. Luckily (unluckily?) my brother was unable to score a wild turkey despite his best efforts. I guess the stringy wild turkey will remain a mystery for next year. In all honesty, I think my mother was more worried with the thought of my brother using a gun. Had he wrestled the turkey and killed it with his bare hands it would not have been rumored to be stringy.
Anyway, now the reason this post is happening.
I give credit to my brother and sister-in-law for getting me to cook something I normally would have never thought to cook: cranberries. You see stacks and stacks of jellied sauce at the grocery store – watching it slide out retaining the shape properties of the can onto serving plates for years of Thanksgiving dinners is an American tradition, I never once thought of cooking my own.
First, I never thought of cooking my own cranberry sauce because as a kid I never saw my mother, aunts or grandmothers attempt this, so I assumed it was difficult task. The turkey is cooked at home and doesn’t seem too hard, but canned cranberry? Must be difficult. Secondly, i just never thought of it.
I went to Whole Foods in search of fresh, organic cranberries. Totally out of character I went to the market without researching the hell out of every ingredient and suggested prep technique. I stood in bewilderment as I read the back of the bag: 1 cup of water, 1 cup of sugar and 1 package of french cranberries. Boil water and sugar, add cranberries, wait until they pop, stir occasionally. Cool overnight and serve. What? Wait? That’s it! There is something wrong. I looked around to share this discovery with someone, anyone – no one. Oh, well.
Now I head home to research the making of cranberries which has now become an obcession. I read every blog I can find: Martha, Paula, Bobby, Tyler, all of them have this simple recipe with personal and regional tweaks and flavorings. Why have I been eating canned jellied cranberry sauce for the last 33 years? It’s an abomination to the lovely, super-tart cranberry!!
Well, I made the cranberry sauce and after the berries popped, I threw in 2 pinches of cinnamon, a pinch of ground cloves and ginger, the zest and juice of half an orange. It was Christmas in a bowl. My mother tasted it and said: potpourri. Perfect. I made potpourri!!
I told my brother and sister-in-law about the Cranberry Adventures and they were not surprised how cranberry sauce was made, I think they were amused at my revelation. Cranberry sauce = Organic Farmers inside joke or something. They ate it and said they loved it, so I guess a new tradition has begun.
Happy Thanksgiving!
{RUE}
PS: Left over cranberry sauce is delicious over pancakes the next morning with the leftover whipped cream. Also, over vanilla ice cream. YUM!