Thanksgiving - Jack and Ruby Hunt's Sage Dressing and Turkey Gravy

Every Thanksgiving I pull out the Red Turkey Head, buy a fresh pineapple with the bushiest 'tail' I can find and then pin the head on the turkey. Our first turkey head came from the Southern Christmas show probably 20 years ago. They are simple to make and over the years, I have made several of them to give to teachers, family and friends. It's amazing how a pineapple can take on a whole new personality with a little red and yellow felt pinned on there.

Bringing out the Red Turkey head brings on Thanksgiving memories from much further back. Daddy used to go quail hunting every Thanksgiving Day and Mama would spend all day working on a big Thanksgiving supper. Every meal we had back in those days was home cooked and eaten around a set table. So one of my Thanksgiving memories from the early 60s is that Mama would let us have one of those new frozen TV Dinners for lunch while Daddy hunted and she cooked supper. Since frozen dinners were a fairly new thing and a total rarity at our house, I thought eating TV dinners was a real treat. And of course, you got to eat TV Dinners while watching TV instead of at the table. Which kept me out of Mama's way. I think Mama was a lot like Tom Sawyer.

Even though we only had three TV channels back then, it was enough because I could start the day with Cheerios and Captain Kangaroo. I liked the Captain and Bunny Rabbit and Mr. Green Jeans, but my favorite thing was waking up Grandfather Clock. OHHHH GRRRANNNDDFAATHERRR! After several tries yelling at the TV, Grandfather Clock would finally blink his eyes and wake up. The Captain was so grateful and I was so glad to have helped.

After breakfast if the weather was good I'd go play outside in the woods or in a pile of leaves. You never know about Thanksgiving weather around here. It can be freezing cold or 75 degrees. One of the best fall games to play outside was combine. A combine is a piece of farm equipment used for harvesting and threshing hay and I'm not sure, but I think my cousin Dickie made this game up. We would get huge cardboard boxes from somewhere and pretend they were combines and we were the hay. We'd crawl inside the boxes and roll down the hills. We raced each other and tumbled around and around and usually fell out of the boxes laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Like I've mentioned before, you kind of had to make your own fun in Lattimore.

After that excitement it was fun to go back inside to watch the Charlotte Thanksgiving Day parade on a black and white TV with an extra special frozen chicken pot pie. The Charlotte station - WBTV - aired the Thanksgiving Day Parade with local TV personalities that felt like family. There was Arthur Smith and Tommy Faile who did a music show and also a commercial for Bost Bread. Bost Bread was made in Shelby and when you were near the Bost Bread bakery on Marion Street, you could roll down your car windows and smell fresh bread cooking. In the Bost Bread commercial they were talking about learning in math class that Pi r Square. Tommy Faile acted like he was unable to grasp this concept and his famous line in the commercial was "No, No, No! Pie R Round, Bost Bread R Square!" That must have been a very effective commercial, because I remember it even though Bost Bread is not around anymore.

Ty Boyd and Betty Feezor were two other WBTV personalities who sometimes were the announcers for the Thanksgiving Day parade in Charlotte. Besides Mama and Nishie, Betty Feezor was my heroine in the kitchen back then. She was so calm and collected and organized as she demonstrated all kinds of home economics on TV. Ty Boyd had a great deep voice on TV and in person. Years later I met him when I attended a sales seminar that he led called Play the Hand You're Dealt. The jist of the seminar was that successful and happy people don't make excuses. Successful, happy people size up the situation, minimize the weaknesses and go with the strengths. It's not productive to waste time wishing and whining, just play the hand you're dealt. Kind of like counting your blessings. And being thankful for them.

There are many favorite dishes from Hunt Thanksgivings, but one of the very best is Sage Dressing for 60. It's not unusual for us to have 50-60 people on Thanksgiving Day at the Cabin in Lattimore. If you aren't having 60 people you can do the math. Hope you're better at math than Tommy Faile!

Jack and Ruby Hunt's Sage Dressing for 60

8 cups of day old cornbread (this needs to be real cornbread that is cooked and then dried out a day or so so it won't be stuck together. Daddy declares that if you don't know how to make cornbread you won't be able to make this dressing either.)
8 cups Pepperidge Farm Herbed Stuffing Mix (don't cheat and use 16 cups!)
4 cups uniformly chopped celery
4 cups uniformly chopped onion - "not sweet onions, but regular yellow ones"
12 eggs (beaten)
2 tsp baking powder - so the dressing "won't be sad"
About 3 cups chicken broth - better to cook a chicken to make your own broth and use Swanson if you need more
A little milk to make it the right consistency
5 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
3 Tbsp Rubbed Sage (Dad always wants more sage in there than Mama thinks is needed)
Heaping Tbsp ground sage (sage has a short shelf life, so buy a new box every year)

Daddy likes the ground sage better and Mama likes the rubbed sage. So they have agreed to put in some of both. Probably a clue as to how they have been happily married for so long.

Saute onion and celery in canola oil. Put dry ingredients together and mix well. Add celery and onions, then add wet ingredients. Butter pyrex dish and/or cookie sheet (it will take several). Spread dressing into dishes but don't pack too tightly and don't level it off. Daddy says you want to leave it rough with peaks and valleys "sorta like the south mountains". Bake 30-45 minutes at 400 degrees. The peaks will be browned and crispy and it should be crusty on the outside and moist on the inside.

The Hunt's Turkey Gravy

This requires a good deal of intuitiveness but here is the framework for gravy. This recipe is usually more than tripled for Thanksgiving.

1/4th cup butter
1/2 cups very finely chopped onion
Saute onion in butter just a little bit but not too browned

Add enough flour to make a roux - probably 3 Tbsp
Stir until the roux is "sorta dark but not too brown. Don't let it burn and get that bad flavor."
Add a little chicken broth and continue to stir with a wire whisk.
Add a couple more cups of chicken broth, salt and pepper stirring constantly

Yesterday I was talking with Daddy about blogging these recipes. He said, "We've been playing with sage dressing and gravy for over 50 years and we've got it down to where we like it. Gravy will run out if you're not careful. It's sorta the main thing."

Maybe the main thing is playing for over 50 years.