We spent a week on Long Island for Thanksgiving. Tom joined us for most of it, and I spent a lot of time shuttling to and from the city for work and play.

Before Tom joined us Ben and I went for a cool walk on the grounds of an old estate that backs up to his family’s house. It was a gorgeous late afternoon.

Late sun through ornamental grass in the yard:

Wonderful weathered red shutter on a collapsed potting shed abandoned in the woods:

The last gasp of sunset:

We cooked most of the sides for Thanksgiving: Super-creamy (and amazing) mashed potatoes (wheeee, 6 pounds of potatoes, 3 cups of cream, 3 sticks of butter!), stuffing/dressing, cranberry sauce and gravy. It was my first attempt at any of those things and I was delighted that everything turned out well. The gravy freaked me out because the turkey turned out to have dropped 2 cups or fat with virtually no juice. Since nothing separated I assumed it was all juice, no fat, used butter to make my roux, then found myself with a separating greasy mess of gravy. I eventually drained off most of the fat and gave it a final good whisking before giving up, and Poof, it pulled together, very velvety and glossy if a bit (a lot) thick.

Ben’s brother John’s second or third helping:

On our final night on the Island, Tom made one of his standby specialties, chicken with cashews. Delicious as always!