Twas the night before Thanksgiving....

...and I've sent my partner to the grocery store. Lord knows I don't want to go. So if you're at Interstate New Seasons Wednesday night around 8:30pm and you see a very good looking Latina who answers to AdRi wondering the aisles seeking things like allspice berries, leeks and sage, give her a high five. At the last minute I decided we needed to have stuffing tomorrow. "It's Thanksgiving!" Leek, allspice berry stuffing, and anyway, she forgot to figure out ahead of time how she was going to cook the turkey. The answer? Sage. And that means sage gravy. Oh sweet jesus.

I will never go to a grocery store the day before Thanksgiving if I can help it. No sirreeeee. My mother once sent me there to retrieve cranberries. I was in college and home for the holiday. I think I ran into people I knew. ***shudders*** And I think the line was 45 minutes, to buy 2 bags of cranberries. It was a slice of hell. Never. Again.

So tonight? I've made the pumpkin cheesecake, the Famous Holiday Cheese Salad, and roasted several heads of garlic (some for freezing, some for use in potatoes tomorrow). The Famous Holiday Cheese Salad you ask? Oh, that along with green jello salad, frog eye salad and raspberry frost salad are sending the Lelo in Nopo statcounter into a frenzy this time of year. Evidently, lots of home cooks are seeking some last minute advice (many are in Utah), and thanks to Google, are landing here at Lelo in Nopo. If you are new to this blog, I do highly recommend these posts for some enjoyable reading and history.

But if you think our current holiday celebrations are only full of jello and whip cream, I'm afraid you may be wrong. We'll be having turkey with sage, mashed potatoes with rosemary and roasted garlic, spinach and leek gratin, the last minute addition of leek alspice berry paprika stuffing (call me crazy!), the famous holiday cheese salad-because-I-cannot-help-myself it is Thanksgiving people!, and a pumpkin cheesecake. Oh, and did I mention the cranberry rum punch?

But all of this will only happen after we deliver a whole lot of meals to homebound seniors. Are you not sure about that elderly neighbor down the street who you never see? This is the perfect time to take the step to knock on the door and introduce yourself, offer some pumpkin pie, and say hello. Do it. Use the holiday as the excuse to just do it now. And really, isn't that the real spirit of the season? You'll feel good, they'll feel good, it's Thanksgiving.

Gobble! Gobble!