A Great Barrington Thanksgiving Feast

When you travel the slow way - renting an apartment or house and setting down roots for a short period of time - you have to come to grips with the fact that things won't be the same way as they were at home. Nowhere is this more apparent for me than in the kitchen; improvisation is the name of the game.

This was hard with a meal like Thanksgiving where so much of the menu is based on tradition. Nonetheless I think we managed just fine!

Paul and I had had a busy day with outlet mall shopping, climbing Monument Mountain, and helping to get dinner on the table. While we were on our errands mom seemed to have read, slept, and rested. She had cleaned off the deck and gotten the table all ready for dinner.

Our first course was out on the deck - an assortment of cheeses that we had bought on our journeys over the weekend, some lemon garlic olives, and prosecco.

'Someone' forgot that a) prosecco isn't soda pop, and b) that it was supposed to last for the first and second course. This meant that dinner preparation became a largely singular activity from that point on.

We moved inside for the second course - pumpkin and sage ravioli with a browned butter and sage sauce.

Those of us who hadn't gulped down our prosecco found that the crisp, sparkling wine paired perfectly with the ravioli. I supposed I could have shared but then again, 'why reward goofy behaviour' has always been my motto! *smile*

Normally when serving Thanksgiving dinner at home we'd fill the table with serving platters full of vegetables, meat, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy for the main course. Having no serving dishes we didn't bother with that - instead we set everything in pots and pans in the kitchen and we just helped ourselves.

Because we were in a rental with crappy knives and missing key food preparation tools we had to improvise on the menu as well. For the first time in history we used prepared mashed potatoes - sure they were from Whole Foods and NOT a box but we hadn't peeled those potatoes ourselves. The squash wasn't a whole Butternut squash bought at the market - we bought squash pieces. Generally we fill the turkey with stuffing and bake it until it is a golden brown. We decided to do a turkey breast which had been cut through so stuffing was NOT an option and we tossed two drumsticks in the pan for mom who would rather have dark meat than white. See what I mean . . . lots of improvisation . . .

So . . . for the main course we had roast turkey, sausage dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, broccoli with cheddar cheese, squash with apples and cranberries, and mom's famous cranberry sauce that she had made at home and brought all the way to the Berkshires with her.

Paul had selected a wonderful Santa Barbara Pinot Noir to sip alongside the main course.

We rested a bit before dessert. I actually felt comfortably full for the first time in recent memories; generally our post Thanksgiving routine involves laying on a couch and groaning in agony because we have overeaten in the extreme. This pre-dessert break provides a nice opportunity to tidy up, fill the dishwasher, put food away, that sort of thing.

We had brought a pumpkin pie with us - not sure we find a decent one in the Great Barrington area. Normally we'd have whipping cream with this but there was not beater in the house so we decided to go with some amazing ginger ice cream from the SoCo Creamery in town. SoCo Creamery (South County Creamery) is a family owned and run micro-creamery based in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, producing delicious, ultra-premium ice cream, sorbet, and gelato. The ginger ice cream had crystallized bits of ginger in the sweet cream base. A bold, yet cleansing flavor… sweetness and spice blended to perfection - and the most amazing accompaniment to pumpkin pie. In fact, I may be done with whipped cream for good!

I had picked up some pumpkin macaroons at Trader Joe's so we served those with the pie. YUM

Sure, the dinner wasn't exactly as we might have enjoyed at home but then again, the whole point of the exercise was that we WEREN'T at home - we were in the lovely Berkshires enjoying a break FROM home. When we planned this mini-break we timed it so that it would cheer Paul up a bit since his store closed at the beginning of October throwing him out of work for the first time in his adult life. We thought a change of scenery would cheer him up and it did.

Comments

[bellini]

Improvisation make the most memorable meals. Years to come you are not likely to remember the dinner at home but you will always have the Berkshires.

[Kayte]

It's beautiful! I would say it was more than a "fine job," and that you really outdid yourselves again this year, home or not. It was fun on FB when you were posting courses as they occurred and I could see it as it progressed. I am still wondering what was in those lovely gift bags...you always do everything over the top!

[JDeQ]

Thanks! It was a great time with wonderful food and better company.