Thanksgiving Baking

Pumkin Pie set out to cool.  It will be served with whipped cream for dessert tomorrow.

For the past two years the younger family members next door have orchestrated the Thankgiving feast, inviting cousins and friends.  I have liked that, being required only to produce a few pies and dinner rolls for the event. I could enlist grandson to carry food and extra chairs across the adjoining yard, enjoy the rather noisy company for an hour or two and then stroll back to my own quiet realm.

 By Monday I began to suspect that they weren't organizing anything this year.  SIL and grandson had planned to attend a sporting event, but had to cancel. Daughter G. has been at home from her teaching duties, having finally succumbed to some variety of illness making the rounds.  J. and I were all day on errands in Casper on Monday, a 2 and 1/2 hour drive each way.  I spotted a new Super Wal Mart just behind one of the building supply places we visited, and with a feeling of, "Errrr, someone needs to plan Thanksgiving dinner," we hurried in to purchase a frozen turkey and some yams.  I did a bit of local shopping last night and announced [with a tinge of martydom] that I would produce a harvest dinner.

I enjoy traditional holiday food, I like to bake, however, the occasion seemed simply to descend on me this year while I wasn't looking!

I was out of the quilt shop early today, and hurried home to start the baking.  A large tin of pumpkin has turned into the above pictured pie and a loaf of pumpkin/raisin bread---quite appealing--I just had two slices liberally spread with butter.  I baked a small blueberry pie for J. who doesn't relish pumpkin, tucked a larger blueberry pie in the freezer for future reference.

Daughter has struggled from her bed and phoned to inquire in a raspy voice if they should prepare anything for the communal meal.  I have it well in hand, and there is the suggestion that SIL may take over the roasting of the "bird", a task he does with finesse.

I protest the quantity of side dishes which sometimes appear at these feasts and the corresponding excess of food consumption.  I like to keep it simple. The theme, after all, is meant to be thankfulness; gratitude for ample harvest--not quite as meaningful perhaps in these days of super market shopping as when the winter's food was the result of a handed down knowledge of seeds and seasons, planting and weeding, harvesting and putting by, all undertaken with hope and prayers for timely sunshine and rain.

On Friday we will head over South Pass to celebrate the holiday with our son and his partner.  Heidi is a marvelous gourmet cook and a meal which she creates is always memorable.  I will doubtless be making another pie or two in her kitchen.

When I asked what I might bring [shopping is even more limited in Pinedale than here] she immediately requested a new teakettle as hers has sprung a leak. 

I went first to the elegant kitchen shop in town.  Two kettles on offer--handsome, but VERY pricey. I tried the appliance store next and discovered a bewildering array of mid-priced kettles in their cookware department.  I dithered, rejecting the cheapest ones, attracted by a sleekly modern "stainless" model, but finally won over by the  homespun red-speckled enamel one above. It should add a cheerful note of color during the long winter.

As we grow older holidays bring with them an increase of nostalgia, memories of times past, family no longer with us.  Writing this tonight, in a house that smells of ginger and cinnamon and pumpkin, many miles from my home in New England, I can conjure up years of Thankgiving services, my Mother at the pipe organ in the choir loft, my Dad hovering over the recording equipment at the front of the church creating the master tape from which he would make copies for shut-ins. All the stops out on the organ for the final verse of the closing hymn, all voices raised in joyful song.

Come, ye thankful people, come,

Raise the song of harvest home;

All is safely gathered in,

Ere the winter storms begin.

God our Maker doth provide

For our wants to be supplied;

Come to God's own temple, come,

Raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God's own field,

Fruit unto His praise to yield;

Wheat and tares together sown

Unto joy or sorrow grown.

First the blade and then the ear,

Then the full corn shall appear;

Lord of harvest, grant that we

Wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come,

And shall take His harvest home;

From His field shall in that day

All offenses purge away,

Giving angels charge at last

In the fire the tares to cast;

But the fruitful ears to store

In His garner evermore.