...which actually is the Sunday Brunch and the Stitcher's question of the week.

This week's Sunday Brunch:

'I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.' -Ralph Waldo Emerson

1) How do you cook your turkey? (Stuffing, spices, cooking bag, etcetera)

Usually in the oven in a roasting pan, on a v-shaped rack. No cooking bag, liberal butter basting at the beginning (first 30 minutes) and then it's tented so that it will self-baste and the breast won't get overdone. No stuffing in the cavity...

2) What is your favorite Thanksgiving dessert?

Would you believe it's cherry pie and not pumpkin? The whole time I grew up we had pumpkin for Thanksgiving, but we usually could get pumpkin all the way through to Christmas, so I didn't bother with it. I could always have it later. But a good cherry pie could be had in droves at Thanksgiving, and we'd grab one of those (my mom didn't bake, and she didn't trust me with the oven, nor did I know what I was doing).

3) What are you doing this year for Thanksgiving?

We're going over to MIL's and hoping that SIL (the youngest) doesn't food poison the stuffing. Ok, that's my personal assessment of the situation - we're hoping she doesn't make the stuffing at her house and drive it down because it's a sausage stuffing and she lives in Oregon. We're in the San Francisco Bay Area for those who don't know, and that's a bit of a drive.

4) Do you have any family traditions at Thanksgiving?

Um. Does eating until we're sleepy count? Personally I try not to get pissed off by anyone in the family.

5) What one dish does it just not feel like Thanksgiving without besides turkey?

Mashed potatoes - really creamy, slightly garlic ones. We did one Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes - that was the year that the previously mentioned SIL offered to take care of potatoes, and she catered to the way her husband wanted them - scalloped. Not that there's anything wrong with scalloped, it's just not what the family does. We do mashed. I didn't eat much that year, and went home and made mashed potatoes.

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And now, the Stitcher's Question of the Week

Hand-dyed fabrics - love 'em or hate 'em? If you love them, what kind/colours do you have?

Love Love Love 'em. I adore hand-dyed fabrics. I've got all colors of the spectrum (and I've even laid them into my drawers that way) but I seem to have quite a bit in the blue and blue-purple ranges. I need to get a little more green into the spectrum, but I'm not sure why yet - it's just a feeling I have.

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Well, that's it for today. I've not decided when my Thanksgiving holiday for this blog will start, so you'll just have to watch this space, or go back and read things that you've not already. There's a year's worth of columns here...