16 days?!

I just realized that Thanksgiving is a mere 16 days away. Normally, at this point, I'd be debating with Mark whether to splurge on a Heritage turkey or just find a fresh bird or maybe try something new (a capon?), scribbling down menu ideas, picking out wine, ironing our napkins while catching up on House, and organizing my shopping list into zones to be tackled weekly.

But this year I've been a little bummed since my family won't be here to spend Thanksgiving with us, which is why I was relieved when Mark's adviser invited us to have dinner with his extended family and a bevy of other graduate students. Mark and I love cooking Thanksgiving dinner; we've gotten pretty good at turning out a tasty bird and all the trimmings, but it'll be nice not to have to do all the planning this year.


Still, I've been eyeing the caramel pumpkin pie filling recipe from Gourmet, pictured above... not having pumpkin pie in the refrigerator for late night snacking on Thanksgiving weekend is unthinkable!