Cooking

It’s decorative gourd season, people, let’s get that pumpkin spice fever!

A somewhat peculiar recipe, and the color is disconcerting. It is a vibrant Pepto-Bismol pink, but it is delicious and I make it every year to go with turkey, and later, roast beef sandwiches.

Galettes are rustic French open-topped pastries, usually made with fruits. Inspired by some reading I was doing on the food of Southwest France, where most of France's pumpkins are grown, I decided to try putting the two ideas together for something new to do with pumpkin or its many cousins (Hubbards, butternut, acorn, Turk's turban, or sweet dumpling [Delicata] squashes).

Make this the day before Thanksgiving and you will have only to add the drippings from the turkey on the great day when you're all hassled anyway. Refrigerate it and reheat it while the turkey is being carved.

Get your little pumpkins right away because they will all be spoiled if they freeze in the field and they keep wonderful at garage temperature. A gang of them arranged on a huge white platter with sprigs of kale for garnish are almost as spectacular as the bird.

While I like all poultry headed for the smoker, gas grill, or oven to be brined at least for a few hours, for a more emphatic flavoring, a brine cum marinade works wonderfully. It's also useful when you don't want to cook your bird for a couple of days. This turkey was left in its marinade in a large covered canner (on the floor of a near-freezing garage colder than my refrigerator) for three days. Carved in thin, small slices this 15-pounder goes a long, long way for a buffet or cocktail party fare.

Turkey on the grill is perhaps my favorite route to a juicy, brown bird - it's fast too. But the stuffing must be cooked separately via oven casserole, which I always do anyway, since even a stuffed bird never has enough stuffing to satisfy my family and friends.

A 12 to 14-pounder is the top weight for this treatment: Otherwise the grill cover won't close. Do some pre-measuring of your grill before selecting your bird to be sure it fits. Two days in advance wash the turkey inside and out in cold running water. Dry it well with a ton of paper towels. Rub it inside and out with the following "dry rub," which is less demanding than a brine.

This soup has existed about as long as farming has in western civilizations. It is the mainstay peasant soup of France and can be used as the founda­tion for any number of other vegetable soups. In restaurants this soup is near­ly always pureed, but in the old-fa­shioned country version it is not — the vegetables are simply cooked to near disintegration. My version is a compro­mise because it is intended as a main dish and somehow a pureed soup never seems to make it — the hungry mouth needs something to chew on, I guess,

Serves four.

Faeries may not so much dance as galumph around under the moon after a slice of this rich moist cake laden with fruit and nuts. The directions assume an electric mixer, but you can also beat it together with a wooden spoon.

Bread, pies, and tarts can be frozen until ready to use.

Broccoli puree will not only keep for several days, but could be frozen until ready to use.

A few days' mellowing improves the chutney.

Scallops, broccoli, potatoes, and beach plums pay homage to local bounty which, I believe, is an equally important aspect of the Thanksgiving celebration.

The menu is extensive but only the turkey, squash, and potatoes are prepared from scratch on Thanksgiving Day.

A regal sight when four are arranged on one huge platter in a wreath of watercress. Duck is also a sensible alternative to turkey for the small family.

This basic recipe for oyster stuffing, or dressing, for a holiday turkey came from Sidney Snow's syndicated column, "Three Meals a Day," printed in The Star in 1935.