Cracked Cauldron Spillings

Is next week.

How could I forget?

Talk about a great time to experiment with stuffing balls, cookies, pies, tarts, yam annas, spanakopitas, meats en brioche, and fairy cakes!

And plan out our own Thanksgiving menu. Hmmmm.

OK, we can start with mini spanakopitas, goat cheese puffs, portobello caps, and Bacchus Bites to round out the antipasto tray.

Next will come a tortilla soup and a clear turkey broth garnished with turkey shaped celery and carrot bits to clear our palates and get ready for the real food.

The main course is our tradition "baby turkeys" - cornish hens (or, since they are so overpopulated this year - quail) with stuffing balls, a salmon en brioche, "baby cabbages" (Brussels sprouts) in tarragon butter, wild rice pilaf, julienned carrots, green beans and parsnips with almonds, dollar corn, yam annas, a brie and onion tart, and mashed potatoes with gravy.

The salads will be the usual German potato, Southern potato, broccoli slaw, tossed greens, a pasta salad (wagons west - wagon wheel pasta with kidney beans and salsa),and a layered pea salad.

The bread will naturally be feather rolls, with several kinds of butter.

It's dessert where people will really need to loosen their garments.

There will be a buffet of sugar cookies, gingerbread, Turkey shaped Krispie Treats, banana nut bread, cherry pecan bread, Banbury tarts, a rose apple tart, chocolate bread puddings, a Black Forest pie, chocolate cream pie, lemon lemon cheesecake, dipped madeleines, pecan pie, a Dobosh Torte, a Lady Baltimore cake, spotted dogs, and Indian pudding.

Along with that, we'll have Moonfeathers Winery's Concord Grape wine, Wyldewood Cellar's sweet Elderberry wine, pumpkin mead, hot sage tea, a cocoa bar, a coffee bar, cold apricot tea, cold mint tea, and a milk bar.

That should satisfy everyone who's coming for Thanksgiving.

Now, if I'll just remember to buy more blankets and pillows...

And, hehehe, I'll use the family as guinea pigs for some recipes to use in the Cracked Cauldron.