Messing with Nan's Stuffing

I'm cozied up in my thick fleece robe, planning Thanksgiving weekend.

We are going to my sister's house for dinner and I have to bring a few dishes. Oyster stuffing. Sweet potato casserole. Dessert.

Easy peasy.

But we won't have any leftovers at home so I'm going to cook a Thanksgiving meal for us on Friday. Nan's stuffing. Homemade cranberry relish. Turnip. Gravy.

All of my favorites. All recipes from my Nan and my mom.

__________

I got home from work today and the Man was sitting at the table, doing the daily Sudoku puzzle in the newspaper. We chatted about each other's day and started puttering around, getting dinner pulled together.

He asked me about making oyster stuffing for Thanksgiving and I told him we were responsible for bringing that to my sister's house. He happily offered to make it and then told me he had been talking to a co-worker about Thanksgiving foods.

"Joe says that they put fresh cranberries in their stuffing and it's very good," the Man said. I was cutting tomatoes and getting the baked beans ready to be warmed up so I wasn't really listening to him. Until I heard the word "stuffing".

"What?" I asked him. "What did you say about stuffing?" And he repeated the cranberry nonsense. Cranberries in Nan's stuffing? I don't think so.

And I told him as much.  I gave him the stink eye and I reminded him of the year my sister and I got sucked into trying a chestnut stuffing at Williams Sonoma and bought bags of it to replace Nan's stuffing.

There is no replacing Nan's stuffing.

The Williams Sonoma stuffing was not very good and everyone was fairly cranky with us for trying something different.

"Oh, right, " the Man said. "We'll leave Nan's stuffing alone. You don't want to mess with that."

No, you don't.

Pumpkin graveyard.

So many pumpkins.