My Favorite Meal

I love, love, love Thanksgiving. I love the turkey and the sides and the desserts and the friends/family. It's about eating good food, but also about counting our blessings. Great combo.

Plus, we'll be spending Thanksgiving with new baby Greta this year!

We're splitting the Thanksgiving cooking between ten people this year (the two babies aren't required to make anything) so it should be a somewhat light lift for all. My mom and youngest sister are heading over tomorrow and are going to help me make Apple Cranberry Pie, Pumpkin Pie and Bourbon Sweet Potatoes. Plus, my sister is making a cheesecake pie.

The Bourbon Sweet Potatoes are from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food (Nov '09) but it doesn't look like the recipe is online.

The pumpkin pie is going to be made from a pumpkin my mom grew. Whoa!

And the Apple Cranberry pie was an inspiration I had a couple weeks ago. I found a recipe on the Cook's Illustrated Web site, but it's only available to subscribers.

I'll report back on all this, plus Pete's making Brussel Sprouts with Bacon and Apples.

Anyone making something particularly exciting?

Gobble, Gobble!

PS I made some delicious bread and squash soup this week. I'll try to post the recipe tonight, if I have time. But, I'll also be frantically cleaning my apartment in preparation for guests.

New York, New York

I just booked a hotel in New York for my birthday weekend in April! We're really going!

Now, time to start thinking about what to do there. I'm thinking: art gallery (which one?), Central Park, a play, tix to Conan O'Brien. And, we'll probably take a jaunt over to Brooklyn where I'd like to check out the Brooklyn Flea Market, which Martha recently blogged about.

Where else should we go? Where should we eat?

UPDATE: Dope! Conan moved to LA when you took over The Tonight Show. Options are: The Daily Show, SNL, David Letterman and The Colbert Report. I found a very helpful NY Times article about getting tickets.

Wednesday Cuteness

Elephant + Dog * Friendship = I'm squealing with the cuteness of this clip.

(I'm mostly posting this for my sister, a lover of elephants.)

Thanks Erika

The best part of Halloween?

Katie (as Dolly), Greta and Pete (as a young Kenny Rogers), originally uploaded by Maggie Skinner.

Hanging out with baby Greta Louise. She was one week old on Halloween! Hey kid, just wait until you can eat the candy.

I was afraid to touch her with my crazy, scary fake red fingernails!

Babies make the world seem like a happier place.

If you want to absolutely explode with cuteness, click here.

How do I know it's fall?

1.) This is what I bought at the farmer's market this weekend:

• Squash (2 kinds!)
• Kale
• Beets
• Apples
• Pears

2.) I had to bundle up and use both my front

and rear lights on my bike ride to work this morning.

3.) I went to a chili cook-off last week.

4.) I carved pumpkins with friends.

Welcome fall!

Oh, by the way, I had the most amazing kale salad at a Locavore Potluck at church (most of the food was grown locally). And, since I'm currently on sugar overload, I'm going to go heavy on the vegetables and light on the sugar this week. Here's the recipe - the trick is "massaging" the kale!

Massaged Kale & Currant Salad

By Jennifer Adler M.S., C.N.

Makes 6 servings.
• 1 bunch kale, de-stemmed, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup diced red onion
• 1/3 cup currants
• 1 cup diced apple (1/2 apple)
• 1/3 cup sunflower seeds, toasted (I used roasted seeds)
• 1/3 cup gorgonzola cheese, crumbled

Put kale in a large mixing bowl. Add salt, massage salt into kale for 2-3 minutes.
Gently stir in remaining ingredients except for cheese.Taste salt and vinegar. When at desired flavor gently stir in cheese.

Oh, and one more sign that it's fall - costumes!