Who should we thank for what?

Not overall a very gratitude filled holiday but we managed to enjoy it anyhow. We had friends over. Dale made a wonderful hors d’oeuvres, on the light side as I had asked him to. Gigi brought wine and a fancy caramel pecan pie. Melenie and Jay brought bread from the French bakery in Wellfleet and their sweet and wondrously helpful selves. Wednesday around 5:30 I had a dream that the pumpkin I intended to use for the potiron tout rond was too high and wouldn’t fit in the upper oven. The dream woke me and I lay there for a while and finally went downstairs. We had only 2 whole pumpkins left from the garden. IT DIDN’T FIT. I was so upset I never went back to bed. it was 5:45 by then. Maybe you rise quite cheerfully that early, but I don’t. Melenie and Jay arrived from Hadley a bit after two. Jay helped Woody built 4 new raised beds in the lower garden. We’ll be splitting it, 3 beds for me to plant and 3 for Woody. Woody had plowed manure and lime into the main garden just before they arrived. Woody picked up a turkey and to my infinite relief, we would be able to fit both the whole stuffed pumpkin and the turkey in the lower, far bigger oven. We had a fresh natural turkey of about 14 lbs – a bit bigger than we desired, but that’s what they had. Melenie and I decided to brine it. I had never brined a turkey before, nor had Melenie. Woody said the big pot we use for canning would work. We followed instructions from the internet and measured the water and added the proper amount of kosher salt. Then we mixed in herbs, spices, oranges and lemons. Then we put the turkey back in. It rose, it floated, it would not be covered with brine. We put weighty things into the cavity. It rose, it floated, it would not be covered with brine. We tried every heavy object we could think of. The water splashed freely and the turkey rose just as freely. Melenie went out and found a fair sized rock. We washed it, we sterilized it and we put it on the floater. Splish, splash, how that turkey wriggled and splattered us. Soon we were soaked. But the turkey would not sink. Finally we got the rock properly on the damned turkey and it sank, further inundating us, the sink, the floor, probably for all I know, the ceiling. But the lid would not fit now. We had Jay bring up a cooler and put the turkey in with Plymouth Rock as we named it on top. But now there wasn’t nearly enough brine. We had used up our kosher salt. Melenie ran to the store and got 2 more packages. We measured water, added more spices, etc etc etc etc and yet more water and salt. By now we had to change and we had gone through 3 boxes of salt. Finally we got enough liquid to cover the free-swimming turkey with Plymouth rock on top. It had only taken us 3 hours to brine a turkey. it took 12 minutes for me to make cranberry apple sauce. The next morning I made a rum pumpkin pie from a pumpkin I had roasted and pureed from our garden. I make wonderful pies. My crusts are perfect and a joy to eat. Other people’s crusts are leaden and tasteless. I am the crust queen. At 1:30 Melenie and Jay arrived from a friend’s house where they stay in Provincetown. We began at once on the potiron tout rond I have adapted rather freely from Julia Child. We used the last rouge vif d’estampes pumpkin, probably a mistake as it was awfully big. I should have used the last of the New England pie pumpkins. Oh, well.it was and is delicious. Then we made dressing – bread, onions, celery, apples, chicken sausage. Suddenly we were choking. Smoke bellowed through the kitchen and diningroom. The pan the stuffed pumpkin was in had overflowed into the bottom of the oven and was burning. After twenty minutes and much coughing and tearing, Woody finally got it under control while we opened windows and set up fans. At last we could breathe again. I cut the ends off and halved Brussels sprouts from our garden for about 45 minutes. Woody cooked the turkey; we did the rest. We then tried to make gravy, something neither of us had ever done. Gravy is not Jewish. Anyhow, we worked on it for about an hour. Woody tasted it, announced It sucks, throw it out. So we did. I made the Brussels sprouts in a mustard cream sauce that was delicious. After all our adventures, people came and ate and pronounced everything great. We had a good time. When Melenie and I told the story of the floating turkey, we laughed so hard we almost fell off our chairs. The turkey was perfect, but next year, we’ll buy a kosher turkey that is, of course, brined already. AND NO GRAVY.