Mom was feeling a little nostalgic yesterday as we celebrated Thanksgiving. We were in the kitchen making Whipped Potatoes and our Pumpkin Pie Custard while listening to Guess Who on my father’s vintage stereo equipment. It brought forth memories of her working together with her mother to make the Thanksgiving meal while her father watched TV and her sister was downstairs listening to 630 CHED on the radio. Her brothers would be in the field behind their house playing football with the neighborhood boys. Mom cherishes those memories, as I cherish the memories I am making with my own mother in the kitchen.
I will remember us working in tandem, listening to music, the fall light streaming into the kitchen over one of our table settings. Memories of us working together, spending time with my family, memories that we are all thankful for.
Would you believe me if I said we have been planning our Thanksgiving table for an entire year? Sometimes we have no idea what we are going to do right before the big event, other times, like for this years Thanksgiving we were inspired over a year ago.
Shortly after last year’s Thanksgiving Mom came across a unique dinner set made by Johnson and Brothers. The design “Pomona” features a basket of fruit surrounded by flowers and leaves in colours of brown, cranberry, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Unsure if she should buy the dinner set Mom asked for my opinion. I liked it, but more importantly Mom realized how much she liked it and decided to get it. Immediately we thought it would be perfect for next years Thanksgiving. So here we are, a year later, and we are both pleased with the result.
With such a variety of potential colours to feature in our setting the possibilities were endless. We have plenty of table clothes in orange and harvest gold, so we could have easily gone with traditional colours of fall. However, last year we had featured a beautiful table setting with a gold tablecloth, so we decided to go a different route. The purple in the design intrigued me, and the brown in the design leans a little to the purple spectrum as well, so Mom searched high and low and finally found the perfect purple tablecloth. One of the benefits of having an idea a year in advanced is that you can patiently wait for the right item to come along or in this case, items.
Mom knew that she wanted to mimic the basket of fruit in the dinner set design by having one as the centerpiece. She had found a few cornucopias that we thought might work, but then she came across a brass bowl featuring grapes, it was perfect for what she had in mind. Originally, we planned on filling the bowl with real fruit, but decided it might be more practical to use fake fruit. Once again Moms search proved fruitful (pun intended). Only a month before Thanksgiving she found some colourful fake fruit, and for a touch of whimsy a wooden pineapple.
At some point while designing our table settings we may come across an issue or two. Perhaps when we put everything together it doesn’t quite work, a napkin might be the wrong colour, or we are unable to fill the table enough to make it interesting. Therefore, we always try to set it in advanced to give us time to make changes.
Originally, we were going to use gold napkins, but for whatever reason it didn’t quite work. Then Mom remembered she had cream table napkins with a flower design and lace around the edge, she also realized she had a rectangular lace doily that would tie the napkins into the setting and add some interest to the setting.
Months ago, when we were going with gold table napkins, we had chosen vintage light amber footed tumblers and vintage light gold twisted stem wineglasses. They looked striking on the purple tablecloth, so we decided to keep them in the setting. When I complained that something was missing Mom thought of a set of 3 amber Emploli candle sticks. They filled out the centerpiece perfectly. As a final touch we brought out the green in the design by including two vintage Chalet bonbon holders that were often given as wedding favors for guests to take home. We used them to hold our cranberry sauce.
This table setting is one of the most interesting we have done so far. A year in the making, all the time spent looking for the perfect items was well worth it. We really enjoyed bringing it all together. Before I wrap up this post, I wanted to show you the Pumpkin Pie Custard we made for dessert. A few weeks ago, we showed you one way of plating this desert, but we wanted to show you another.
We baked the custard in a round 8-inch baking dish and once cooled covered the edges in pastry shaped like pumpkins, maple leaves and acorns. Last year we had similarly added colour to the pastry cutouts and everyone thought they were cookies. We assure you they were flaky pastry bites and that you can easily add a touch of colour as well. Instead of using a traditional egg wash we split 2 egg yolks into six and died them with food colouring before painting it on. A little sprinkle of sugar and off into the oven they go. It makes for a beautiful presentation, so simple and yet very impressive.
We hope that no matter how, or who you spent your Thanksgiving with that you enjoyed yourselves! Hopefully we have inspired you for your next table setting or reminded you of time spent with your loved ones sharing a delicious Thanksgiving meal.
