Hi! Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends here. I love Thanksgiving, such a warm and loving holiday. I always enjoy the preparations---I can't even call it ''work'' ---that many of us do each year.
I thought this page from Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer was so handy. I cut it out and taped it inside a cupboard door. Sure I've made a zillion turkey dinners ---I still have to try hard to get it just right.
But first I have to dig out the turkey plates and platters. I'm not sure if I showed you the platters, or just my plate collection. But since I get the platters out each year, to unwrap and enjoy---we can take another look. Turkey platters are I think, so fun and festive. I believe they are an American tradition, though many of the best platters were English Staffordshire china. Maybe every home should have just one, but somehow I have accumulated five. Sofar!
I usually only use the biggest Spode platter. I like its weight and shape.
It's English.
This one is marked Japan.
Unmarked, maybe USA, by Johnson Brothers. Similar to the one above but not exactly the same.
A small size, of good quality but unknown origin.
A delightfully garish Woolworth's style tin platter.
The details are so charming~! They almost always show the turkey in a field, with a house or cabin in the background.
They almost always have a fruit border. Though the Spode platter has dainty flower baskets instead.
One side of the scene always has naturalistic etched design of wild seeds, weeds, brambles---and leaves and underbrush.
I love this one, with its prickly pods, so familiar, though I don't know what the tree is. [we called the pods gumballs?] edit: a sweet gum tree.
The scenes are transferred designs, usually in brown / sepia, though all colors were made. [I yearn for a blue version, and black], then the colors were tinted by hand, some more skillfully than others.
Another nostalgic chore is polishing the silverware. I know it's not fashionable to use silver utensils nowadays. They do need light polishing if not used daily. But it's a family tradition and I love my set. Like having ''wedding china'', this is the only way I'd ever be organized to have enough flatware for a holiday party.
My dad made the box, with cherry wood from a friend's trees. The silver was given to me as gifts, from my parents, for years, as I accumulated a goodly set.
As a child it was my job to polish the silver.
My brother never helped. [For some reason I feel like he and my dad went hunting on Thanksgiving morning, but--probably not. A mystery.] And I've never been able to convince my kids that it could be fun! And it's now their job. Nope, here I am, a few days before the holiday, silver polish and a soft cloth in hand.
This lovely set of Victorian pearl handled silver fruit utensiles was a gift from an antiques dealer friend, back during Brooklyn days.
When I opened the old flannel cover, inside also were also silver ladles [top left, below] plus a couple more, including a sugar shell,. For cranberry sauce, creamed onions, etc etc. Very useful and treasured for the memory of a good friend. [He sold me most of my blue transferware...].
Mo loves to help! He is sharing his beloved Gator dolly, I guess we'll have gator wings, lol.
[no, Mo, not really!]
I hope your holiday is wonderful, with friends and family, and good memories. Good times.
love
lizzy
gone to the beach....
Look east...full moon rises.
The fence and pink moon.
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