Today, I’m going to hand the keyboard over to Mr. Punch so that he can share his thoughts on his second American Thanksgiving.
Coo! If I wasn’t made of wood, I’d say I gained quite a lot of weight over this holiday, I would. Well, actually, don’t think about the fact that I’m made out of wood as that would rather ruin my account, wouldn’t it?The day before Thanksgiving, the human took me and the Bertie Dog to his parents’ house where there was a whole lot of choppin’ up o’ things like onions and celery and fresh cornbread. I remembered that this had somethin’ to do with the holiday, so it didn’t bother me none. ‘Sides, I like to see folk usin’ knives. There was bakin’, too, there was. All manner of lovely biscuits, and what you call cookies, and pies and such. The house smelled right good, it did.
The next mornin’, we ate some of that lovely cornbread—seems Joseph’s mum made two of ‘em, one for the dressin’ and one what we could eat on its own. We had sausages! Hooray! I loves sausages! And scrambled hen eggs which is always a treat, it is.
I saw the table—lookin’ all sparkly with crystal glasses and pretty silver. Joseph’s mum made ornaments for the Christmas tree out of eggs what she took the stuff out of. She made ‘em all fancy with beads and paste stones. Each person got one—even Bertie Dog!
Then, out comes this large turkey bird. It were sittin’ in a pan and Joseph’s mum and dad put cheesecloth on it and a marinade o’ wine and such things. They even shoved some nice root vegetables into its belly. Into the oven went the bird. I laughed as it struck me funny. Dunno why.
But, it weren’t just the bird what we was eatin’. No—there was lovely mashed potatoes with buttermilk, garlic and rosemary, green beans with candied walnuts, them nicely baked biscuits, cranberry and apricot compote. Me favorite part was that fine, fine dressin’—made with cornbread, white bread, all sorts of savory things and herbs and fine, fine sausage. Baked up, it was, in a big casserole and, coo!, it were lovely.
Them folk started that big, glorious meal with bowls of beautiful soup. Seems the soup were made of butternut squash and cream and pears! I think that’s just the nicest thing. Smelled as good as it looked—all topped with a mixture of sour cream and heavy cream and a sprinkle of them candied nuts. Even the Bertie Dog had some and he liked it an awful lot, he did.
What else were there? You ask. Well, there were pies. Pumpkin pie with a tender crust and these wee leaves made of crust to adorn it. And, there was a chess pie with pecans, big chocolate chips and bourbon. That was for my human as he don’t care for pumpkin pie. Joseph’s mum made cookies with the piecrust, too. She filled ‘em with chocolate and cranberries and cinnamon and sugar and they was quite tasty. Then, she made fine sugar cookies that were shaped like turkeys and all! The mum and Joseph decorated them with icing. I like them a lot.
