The day after Thanksgiving, and I’m still thankful.
I’m thankful for the Dane County Farmers Market, which moved indoors a few weeks ago and made our table groan yesterday. We have been able to feast on mostly local goodies for the past few years, since we started to tune into the benefits of local food.
...Yes, this is as good as it looks.
Only our desert was a radical departure from our traditional pumpkin pie. The New York Times ran a piece on vegetarian Thanksgiving dishes. The Chocolate-Pumpkin Bread Pudding caught my eye. This is not only vegetarian, but vegan. To me, vegans have the moral high ground. I live in Wisconsin where local artisan cheeses are food of the gods, and I can’t make the leap to veganism. I compromise with local and organic dairy products and eggs from a farmer I know treats his chickens well. The bread pudding was a major hit. This afternoon, we’ll be taking a second pudding along with the entire recreated feast to my aged in-laws, who are too frail to join us these days.
I hope everyone had a meal to be thankful for yesterday and every day, and I want to share a link to Popular Science about “How Science is changing Your Thanksgiving Feast,” which, of course, includes all the meals in between the fourth Thursdays of November as well.
..."Food" is getting more and more artificial all the time. (photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/38446022@N00/3064088118/ )
I’m not sure we should be so thankful for what biotechnology and widespread genetic modification are doing to our food supply. I feel relatively immune because I eat mostly local, but none of us really knows what we are coming home with from our friendly, neighborhood grocery store these days.
If you want to try the vegetarian alternative we have for turkey and gravy, check out my post from last year, A Vegetarian Gives Thanks
We use this gravy throughout the year, and the polenta is great any time as well.
I’d love to know what you were thankful for at your feast this weekend, or any time.
Categories: SUSTAINABLE FOOD
Digging in the Driftless 
Denise — Winding down from Thanksgiving, visiting some favorite websites, I dropped in on yours and I’m adding it (and you and Doug) to the list of things for which I”m thankful. I appreciate your beautiful writing, your good tips, and your thoughtfulness. This comment is to tell you that, and also to tell you that Will and I together read your post on Yama and Tombo. We’re so sorry for your recent loss, and very moved by your recollections of both pups. Will, as one of those college roommates, indeed counts himself as one whose intelligence was surpassed by Yama’s!
Thanks so much, Joan. You and Will were the ones who originally suggested that I start posting about what we were doing on our land. Piloting this post has been the continuously most engaging writing project I’ve had in years. Thanks again for that nudge.
Out of that same trip, you also got us started on the blue bird house thing, and we had a busy blue pair raise two families before our eyes this past summer.
We are thankful for you, too.
Denise
Denise
I was visiting in-laws over the holidays, and while I yearned for my local, sustainably raised food, I couldn’t help but enjoy not have to cook for a day. For that I am thankful!
I’m also thankful to be home, where we continue to spruce up the homestead and make plans for more growing–fruit bushes and trees, chickens?–now that we own the place. 🙂
I really enjoyed that series on the New York Times. I got lots of great ideas for the whole winter!
I know what you mean. I love to cook and am grateful to have access to local, organic foods. But I also enjoyed the Indian take-out meal that we have been getting from a nearby family-run restaurant on Saturday, when we cut our trees.
A little reprieve from KP now and then is a genuine treat.
Denise