Happy Thanksgiving 2011

I love Thanksgiving. I love the foods that are available now and it seems some at no other time. Fresh cranberries, pomegranates, stuffing mixtures, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, sage and turkeys abounding! I grew up in an uncertain household where Thanksgiving couldn't always be counted on, not because of the expense but because of the foods. After I moved on into adulthood, my daughter as an adult exhibited similar tastes, except for pomegranates, she would rather have a steak.

I love where I live because cranberries are grown here, organic turkey farms abound, pumpkins pop up in many of the fields around San Jose before Halloween and are everywhere in the grocery stores till into December. Fresh herbs like sage are easily available if not grown in the kitchen or garden herb garden which I don't have this year, just basil. I always hated cranberries until I could make my own sauce simply with just sugar and fresh berries cooked until they popped. There was always exotic ways of fixing that dish and it was my turn to turn up my nose at the table. It says cranberry sauce not cranberry ice!!

I love sage and herb rub my turkey with butter and olive oil under the skin as it roasts. I keep the dressing of rices and veggies on the side and only put stalks of carrots and celery, an apple and onion inside the bird. I have organic sweet potatoes this year...something different and I don't know yet if I should turn them into sweet potato au gratin or sweet potato pie. I decide a couple a days before the DAY! Since moving to the west coast I have changed my salad to a fresh green salad with pomegranate seeds instead of a Waldorf salad. It was a joyful day when my daughter, Megan told me she loved that fruit. The pom trees grow in many of my neighbors yards and are a wondrous sight to behold in the autumn as the big red balls of fruit pop out and hang on the green leafed trees...foreshadowing Advent. The story of Adam and Eve in the garden has changed from an apple tree as the fruit of knowledge that tempted Eve to the beautiful pom tree which is also a fruit symbolizing fertility in the Middle East and Europe.

It is a special time, the last harvest on earth, and a time to be glad for all that we have even if it is only the birds singing in the trees.