Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday's Thanksgiving turkey will be today's sandwiches. So here's a photo of the bird just out of the oven. Once again, this year we got a fresh turkey from our favorite local farm market. But this year we brined the turkey following an Alton Brown recipe.

The brine consists of vegtable stock, salt, brown sugar, boiled with some peppercorns and allspice berries. You have to wait until that combination cools in the refridgerator to use it. For us that was overnight. Then we added a gallon of ice water and the turkey to a clean five gallon food service bucket. We turned it over once before putting the bird in the oven.

Before roasting Bobbie put aromatics such as apples, onion, garlic, cinnamon sticks, fresh rosemary and sage inside the cavity. The recipe calls for starting the turkey on a high temperature for 30 minutes then lowering it to 350 until the bird is 160 degrees at the thickest parts. Because we have an old oven, it naturally took longer than predicted, but we would rather wait then get sick.

The bottom photo shows Nana, Janine and John just before we served Le Bird. Sarah and Mommie are in the kitchen serving up the rest of the meal at this point. Didn't the kids set a nice table? They took care of the table cloth, serving places and the centerpiece. After playing outside in jeans, all three came inside and changed into nice cloths for dinner on their own. (Thanks for bearing with the parental bragging.) This year we bought new dining room chairs that really help make things look great.

But despite all the feasting, we are thankful most of all for all the blessings that God has given to us.