Today we are hosting our very first Thanksgiving in our new place. I’m not a traditionalist when it comes to this meal. Turkey never impresses me and since I am now in charge— I declared it a turkey-free Thanksgiving! Although this declaration was met with resistance (mostly from Bryan) I am confident that I will be able to convince everyone that we can still give thanks without killing a turkey (instead we will kill a cow). We’ll still have a really lovely meal, just minus the bird. I’ll tell you a little more about the feast once I have cooked it, but for now I wanted to share these delicious little cheese straws that will accompany cocktails and wine at the start of the meal.

Truth be told, I don’t care so much about pumpkins. I love them when they are hollowed-out and carved into jack-o-lanterns but I don’t need them in my ravioli, bread, or pies. I get excited about the first bite but I am usually bored by the second.  I generally pass up recipes for pumpkin bread, but this recipe was in my new cookbook obsession, The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco. Bryan loves pumpkin bread and so I thought I would give it a try.

I’ve been overloaded with sweets this week. The kind of overload that normally occurs later in the year with the arrival of the holidays. All of the sugar has me wanting fresh greens whenever I can get them— I need to balance out this crazy diet of mine somehow. I was getting a little bored of my standard vinaigrette and thought I would start mixing it up a little with some variations on the classic.

You probably guessed this was coming, but I am once again obsessing over cranberries. This time in the form of sorbet. Last year I created a sorbet based on my favorite Thanksgiving cranberry sauce recipe and this year I found a recipe that combines tart cranberries with smooth vanilla into one delicious frozen treat.

I love this time of year. I know that it portends some seriously bad weather ahead, but for now I don’t care. I like putting on a scarf and walking around our beautiful new neighborhood amazed by the colors that a tree can produce. I am also pretty enamored with the foods available at the market right now: baskets of apples, and squash and especially concord grapes.