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Friday, November 13, 2009

An Appealing Preview and Giveaway Winners

It’s almost here.

Around our house, the conversation seems to wrap in concentric circles around a singular topic: Thanksgiving.

The celebration of appreciation and bounty is traditionally the annual high-water mark in our home. Eight people, a tall stack of board games, and countless rounds of whatever beverage the cup in your hand is designed to hold. There are pumpkins to carve, movies to watch, and stories to tell. We’ll go through bags of flour, pounds of butter, gallons of coffee, and sinkfuls of dishes.

Over the years, we’ve perfected a menu of sheer culinary bliss. My husband pops potato biscuits out of the oven with a quality and consistency capable of consigning the Dough Boy into an embarrassing early retirement. And my sister’s pumpkin cheesecake? Ginger and cinnamon, cream cheese and pumpkin mixed and mingled in harmony—-perfection by the forkful. My son loves working with his dad on an Alton Brown-style turkey they begin prepping a full 24 hours before it goes in the oven. I’m all over everything apple—a simmering pot of homemade applesauce, two big pies, and fragrant mulled cider.

For us, you see, Thanksgiving is all about the cooking. No short cuts here. Although I’ll be the first to admit to ordering a Boston Market Christmas every year, at Thanksgiving that’s just not the way we roll. At Thanksgiving we’re all about the slow cooking and savoring the experience.

But just because we embrace the cooking process doesn’t mean we always have the best culinary tools. Over the years we’ve upgraded from metal pie tins to deep red ceramic ones. We’ve ditched our cracked plastic dough rolling disk for a sleek silicone sheet. We’ve bought a few extra bread pans and some sharp knives. But we’re still making do with some pretty rudimentary tools in a key area or two. That’s why I was thrilled when the folks at csnstores.com asked me to select something from their line of cookware sets to help us prepare for our big day.

Although you can consider this whole post a little preview of some of the little bits of Thanksgiving goodness I’ll be sharing over the next week or two—I’ll be passing along some recipes, photos, and generally sharing the fun—I’m really thrilled that I am also able to share my selected cookware item with one of my readers, as csnstores.com will ship a matching item to one of my readers in the continental US.

So what did I choose? Stay tuned next week to find out (hint: think apples!)



Giveaway Winners!


Congratulations to New Follower Roccio and Not-so-New Follower Erin who have both won autographed sets of my YA novels in last week's giveaway!

11 comments:

Julie Kwiatkowski Schuler said...

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! I actually like to do all the cooking, plus there's not all that pressure to have great presents. Or the wrapping paper mess and noisy toys afterward.

Unknown said...

Yea! Winners! Congrats to both! (darn it for me! LOL!)

I, too, love Thanksgiving. We keep it simple since it's usually just the 4 of us. But everything is from scratch. I, also, prepare my bird the day before, as with most other dishes so all we have to do is pop things in the oven at perfectly timed intervals.

Kathleen said...

I didn't win. *Sniff, sniff!* Guess I'll have to buy them! :-)

I'm happy to see you have chosen Alton Brown's more tame recipe. (As opposed to his deep fried one that has the potential to burn down the neighborhood if mismanaged.)

Mixed Reflections said...

Nice. We've grown to despise cooking. In part because our kitchen is so small and appears to be shrinking. And partly because we're just so darn tired after work. Looking forward to ordering something for Thanksgiving...to bad not from your house!

Raoulysgirl said...

Congrats to the winners!!! I'll try to keep my bitterness at bay...LOL!

We love Thanksgiving here, too! My sister lives across the street and we both love to cook. Our hubbies, kids, and mom just sit and take it all in...while we do all the work (willingly) to get all of the credit (gladly, but humbly) and bond in the process (as if we don't do it enough). I can't wait!!!!

Unknown said...

Wait....did I read that right??? Did I actually win something? Did I? Did I?

HOOOOOOORAYYYY!

and
THANK YOU!

Anonymous said...

I HATE that we are not going to be home for Thanksgiving. I'm actually in the middle of trying to find a place in Hong Kong, since that's where we'll be. I've been told some of the hotels put on a pretty good feast. I hope so. But it still won't be the same. I LOVE being with family on Thanksgiving.

I think it's great that you have all of those traditions. I don't cook turkey. I've never tried, actually. Someone else always fixes it. (Maybe that's why it always tastes so good)!

Happy Thanksgiving.

Mich

Anonymous said...

During the years that I worked with a Night's Welcome our Thanksgivings together felt.... right. You were good to me and I still feel all warm and loved when I remember them.

Lori

Life Laugh Latte said...

I LOVE Thanksgiving. I LOVE what Christmas stands for...but even when I try to simplify I always end the month exhausted. Thanksgiving is a couple of days of work with the cooking and cleaning up, but hours of fun just being together without any other expectation. Holly at LLL

Unknown said...

I was just thinking about this. We celebrate our Canadian Thanksgiving earlier, but I have a daughter who goes to University in Michigan. So of course she will be home for the holiday, and wants to have the meal she missed. So for a while anyway we have 2 Thanksgivings in our lives, closely followed of course by Christmas, which I host.
We love cooking, thank goodness, but the dishes not so much :)

Unknown said...

You'll be happy to know that I've finally posted about the award you gave me. Better late than never! Thanks again, Cynthia, you are so awesome.

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