In all the excitement and activity of Thanksgiving we forgot to share our newly created Thanksgiving Prosecco and Cranberry Cocktail – failed to post it on the great day. The recipe is now on the site and it’s such a great aperitif that perhaps it shouldn’t be confined to Thanksgiving.
The Great Day
The turkey’s carved and the side dishes are on the table. Food begins to pile up on plates and eyes begin to roam, searching for the cranberry sauce. Gourmands, gourmets and trenchermen the turkey-and-cranberry world over share a single childhood-based demand – that whatever fancy homemade cranberry sauces may appear on the table, there’s at least one plate that features the jelly straight from the can: perfect circles complete with those giveaway molded rings.
If a traditional Thanksgiving isn’t complete without this store-bought, processed jelly, then our Thanksgiving sure strayed from the straight and narrow, despite the Sausage, Apple Cranberry Dressing, the mashed potatoes, the gravy, the sweet potatoes with apples, the Brussels sprouts and the dinner rolls. On our table this year, there simply was no canned cranberry jelly – but even Sarah, who turned sheet white when I told her we were only serving our own Jellied Cranberry Sauce with Wine had to admit that breaking the mold – no pun intended – worked…
It was a perfect day, which John and I shared with Sarah and Jeff and grandson Marco, my sister Laura and our friends Nemo and the Mermaid. With food aplenty, several beautiful wines, the red a Syrah Double Magnum from Gainey, the whites a Rombauer chard, A Chasseur chard and a Far Niente chard all from the fantastic 2007 – what the heck it’s a holiday-we stuffed ourselves with the dishes from Poseidon’s generous galley. Three year old Marco proposed the first toast, he calls it “cheers”, to Boat Grandma, thanking me for making a great special dinner, followed by several toasts of thanks for family and dear friends.
We spent the weekend following Thanksgiving Day with our family, dropping in at the Jolly Oyster to buy a big net of their delectable clams. That nights dinner of Homemade Pasta with Clams was another vindication of our provisioning guideline: organic, fresh and local wherever possible.
Pilot Whales at the Islands
While we stayed ashore, Nemo and the Mermaid took off for the islands.
The Mermaid masquerading as movie star…
Not much of a sail – and Nemo does hate to use his engine – but a heart-lifting encounter with a pod of Pilot Whales…
… and our wonderful Channel Islands as beautiful as ever.
So much to be thankful for…
