Thanksgiving Menus

Yes, its time for my annual discussion of what friends, Staff Goddesses and strangers I accost on the street are serving for Thanksgiving. I have a tedious endless fascination with this topic. Everyone I ask says, “The usual.” then proceeds to describe a meal that almost always has a twist or two. It is the twist or two that pull me into each family’s story.

Another reason for my abiding fixation interest in this meal? My family of origin Thanksgiving menu was so bizarre unappealing unique that I am still puzzling over the menu sixty years later. There was rice. Rice was king. And also Queen. There were peas in a boiling bag from Green Giant and also corn in a bag. There was a spicy fruit compote. There were blueberry muffins from a box mix. There was a dry turkey. However there was no gravy, no mashed potatoes, no stuffing and no pies. For a family that never missed dessert and also sported some very good cooks, the whole thing was odd.

Joining Jim’s family I relished the inclusion of the regular suspects: mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and pies. Jim’s father particularly loved mince pie, and I made this for him with a green tomato mincemeat I canned up each summer. However his Aunt Ruth’s Pumpkin Chiffon Pie was the real star of the pies on offer.

The one puzzle in the Sheehan meal was the appetizer of black olives from a can and celery sticks served in a cut glass dish. I could not imagine wasting space in my stomach on these options, but they always vanished at a Sheehan Thanksgiving. Later I learned this was a very traditional southern New England Thanksgiving thing. Go figure.

After thirty plus years hosting Thanksgiving, the baton has passed to my children, and I am free to put my energy into asking even more people about their Thanksgiving menu.

At my granddaughter’s last soccer game of the season, I asked various spectators what they were serving. One woman’s menu included moussaka for her grandfather from Greece. Another spectator described Thanksgiving as a warm up for the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. Fish dishes are sampled at Thanksgiving to see if they make the cut for the Feast. One man I asked, someone I have known for many years who therefore was probably not too surprised by my odd question could not recall what they ate last year or any year. Some people really don’t find this a topic of general interest.

Turning my attention to Staff Goddesses, one who returns to her childhood home in Connecticut each year said her mother always serves roasted vegetables including broccoli and cauliflower as well. Our roast vegetables include butternut squash, carrots and parsnips so these cruciferous veggies were a new idea. As with my Connecticut family of origin, they also have frozen corn as a side. Her family also has no pie except for pumpkin now added in because her husband missed it. Apple crisp is the dessert du jour which suggests to me that her mother knew my mother as this was the kind of dessert we had in lieu of pies.

Staff Goddess Sam had a southern dad. She spent her childhood Thanksgivings in North Carolina, and the meal included cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and pecan pie. As Sam grew up in puritanical more restrained Massachusetts, the marshmallows on the sweet potatoes was the thing she remembered most as she had never seen marshmallow fluff on a vegetable. As an adult Sam either cooks from her amazing vegetable garden or she and her mom’s family get Chinese take-out as her mom is from Hong Kong. She stressed that after they stopped going to North Carolina when her grandma died, the menus became very free flowing from year to year. Turnip pudding with Chinese mushrooms and hoisin sauce are one of the few dishes that make the cut each year.

Another Staff Goddess participates in enormous family Thanksgivings of forty or fifty people. Mushroom Wellington sits alongside the two turkeys. There are a few rules for the gatherings. Rule #1 is that there will be petit pois a.k.a. little peas WITHOUT onions. Onions are for Christmas which is a meal that also must include a peppermint roll cake which this Staff Goddess loathes but which the family cannot live without. I haven’t mentioned her name as I don’t want her to have to go into the witness protection program because she told me that she hates this dessert. The pies are the focus at her Thanksgiving and the list of pies is long. Maple Cream Pie takes center stage . I am hoping for the recipe. Rule #2 is that pies must be made from scratch. There was a problem with jello instant pudding used in a chocolate cream pie recently, and everyone hopes that was a one time thing. Rule #3 is that there must be cranberry sauce from a can with the ridges still on it AND fresh cranberry compote.

Staff Goddess Emily grew up on a dairy farm in Walpole NH and now is married to a dairy farmer in our town. She goes to her grandmother at HER dairy farm in Massachusetts for Thanksgiving. Emily is usually given the assignment to make rolls and some years this has involved making eight, ten, twelve dozen rolls.

Em’s Grandma keeps a very tight rein on the menu, and this year she has given Emily the assignment of BOILED carrots. She told Emily there is to be no roasting of vegetables. The carrots can be served with butter but NO ROASTING. The meal begins with a relish tray that includes gherkins. I could not pry out of Emily what else went on this relish tray. Like the Sheehan black olive and celery dish, it’s clearly a dud. There are mashed turnips, mashed potatoes mashed without the skins thank you very much, turkey, gravy, boiled creamed onions, sausage stuffing made with Pepperidge farm stuffing mix thank you very much and big rolls. While her husband’s family likes small rolls, Em’s family likes big rolls. She noted that they like big everything. Emily makes such amazing bread that I know from experience her rolls are beyond delicious whether big or small. I am not clear why Emily has been set free from roll duty this year. It is good news for Em but bad news for everyone else.

All in all, respect for Great Grandma who is so clear about what she wants and deserves at her Thanksgiving table.

I have still got another week to accost people and ask them what their Thanksgiving menu is. Wish me luck! And please email us your menu and family Thanksgiving meal traditions. I love hearing from you! This is a holiday we all share and I love that about it!

Flower Essences for Self Care

So many beloveds are dealing with challenges including health crises, unexpected changes in relationship and life circumstances, illnesses that linger longer than expected and a general feeling of being in a pressure cooker situation. Here are some Flower Essences to support you in self care during these challenges. I’ve listed the concern and a Flower Essence or two which will bring support.

FEELING UNSAFE: Golden Armor, Sanctuary, Safe Passage

FEELING HOPELESS: Gorse, Equanimity

LINGERING ILLNESS: Vitality, Wound Healing, Recovery

UNEXPECTED CHALLENGES: Emergency Care, Maltese Cross

ANXIETY: Anxiety

NEED TO REMINERALIZE AND RESTORE: Vitex, Ethereal Fluidium Super Glue

FEELING CAUGHT IN SAME DRAMA: Cherokee Trail of Tears, All Ego Contracts Null & Void

GRIEF & SADNESS Grief & Loss, The Mary Rose , Grief & Loss Rose Trio

EMBATTLED: Mary Queen of Scots Rose, Indian Pipe

FEELING ALONE: Arbor Garden, To Hear the Angels Sing, The Sunflower Spiral

HARD TO STAY PRESENT: Grounding, Black Hills

NOT SURE HOW TO MOVE FORWARD: The Way Forward, Vision

FEELING BURDENED: Carry Less

OUT OF BALANCE: Balance in a Blue Moon, Sacred Feminine & Sacred Masculine

KNOWING THIS IS NOT THE END: Santiago, Fisterra

Why are Flower Essences so Wise?

What makes Flower Essences such a fantastic source for high vibration healing information? Let me offer up just a few of the many reasons why Flower Essences are so wise.

First let’s consider this growing season here at the farm. In the early spring we had no rain, then we had a brief period of too much rain then in midsummer it stopped raining completely. We have had virtually no precipitation since then. The Flowers growing here had to figure out how to adapt to radically different conditions in order to flourish, and flourish they did (Mercifully groundhogs are not very interested in most Flowers).

Each growing season, I create a working list of what Flower Essences I need to make to keep our inventory in good shape. As I went to make Flower Essences many summer mornings, I was in awe how well the Flowers were managing this unpredictable weather. I had only to look back a year to remember how they managed completely different environmental challenges last year when it rained every day. Now, this growing season they have survived drought conditions. Their adaptability is a big piece of their wisdom.

last summer in nearby Quechee VT

As an aside, this wisdom about adaptability is one reason why we go to so many places in the world to make Flower Essences. Each environment demands certain things of its floral inhabitants. How the Flowers adapt to these demands is their unique vibrational wisdom, available to us via Flower Essences. The diversity of environmental circumstances means diverse Flower wisdom in our Flower Essences.

But back to my main point, a Flower flourishing in difficult circumstances holds wisdom about how we too can flourish in difficult circumstances. Climate change and all the rapid changes in our world requires us to learn how to adapt at a much higher pace than ever before. The Flowers, steadfast at our sides, are showing us how to do this.

Each year I make hundreds of quart jars of mother Flower Essences so as to keep a consistent inventory of all our Flower Essences. Each time I make more of a Flower Essence, it finds its home in chronological order behind other earlier batches of the Flower Essence. The Flowers, like us, are always seeking to hold the highest vibration possible, so as I add new Flower Essence inventory, all of the mother Flower Essence upgrade their vibrations. In this way all the wisdom the Flowers learned in all the different growing seasons is held ready to serve you. I have been making Flower Essences since the late 1980’s. Many Flower Essences hold the blended wisdom from thirty or more growing seasons. The vibrational wisdom of each of our Flower Essence grows in light and strength season to season.

Cosmos has been on the shelves since day one.

Additionally there is the long term wisdom of the plant itself bringing to the Flower Essence its core vibrational wisdom.

Let’s consider the Rose family for an example of what I am talking about. Every specific Rose is genetically identical to the very first specimen of this specific Rose. For example our Sarah Van Fleet Rose is genetically identical to all Sarah Van Fleet Roses. Actually its more amazing than that. Each Rose is, in fact, the actual original plant that has been growing continuously for hundreds even thousands of years. Why? Because Roses are grown from cuttings.

Talk about perspective!

Sarah Van Fleet Rose

More astounding still, when you make a cutting from a Rose, the Rose grows a whole plant from this cutting. It has the ability to grow new roots, new stems, new leaves and new Flowers from any cutting, and again, this new plant will be identical to the plant from which the cutting was taken and the original specimen of the Rose.

With Flowers, the layers of wisdom about adaptability to change are ancient and deep. And this vibrational wisdom is offered in full in a Flower’s Flower Essence. More wonderfully still, our electrical systems are able and ready to read and learn from these wise vibrations so we too can adapt to these rapidly changing times.

Yellow Rose from Toledo, Spain
New this season and offering so much wisdom