Thanksgiving, Solstice, and New Year's

Working as I do in a grocery store--one which is particularly focused on real ingredients instead of mixes or boxed dinners--the entire Fall is one long series of Feasts. We begin to prepare for Thanksgiving the moment Halloween is over; we stock loads of flour, sugar, oils, shortening, nuts, honey, cheeses, spices, oh the spices! This year alone during the feast season we sold more than 50 pound of beautiful, fragrant Vietnamese cinnamon. Turkeys, tofurkeys, hams, greens, sweet potatoes, marshmallows, cranberries dried, fresh, frozen--pies and roasts for those who can't cook their own, bread, rolls, yeast, potatoes, the year's first citrus comes in; eggnog, cream, coffee, Beaujolais Nouveau.We do more business on the day before Thanksgiving than any other day of the year. After Thanksgiving, the Christmas preparations begin, and we have to be on our game for that since Christmas is celebrated with parties for weeks in advance. Now the focus is on baking: cookies, candy. Christmas dinner is a goose or a roast beast, a seitan roast or my favorite this year, a Quorn roast in gravy. The weather is really cold now so everyone wants hot tea, mulled cider, spiced wine, hot toddy. It's a month-long marathon of keeping up with work parties, houses full of relatives, exhausted shoppers. And in Florida, the heart of winter is one of our finest times for local vegetables. Collards, mustards, lettuce, spinach, greens of every variety; sugar snap peas, cilantro, and fresh green onions. No sooner have we made it through Yule when it is the New Year, and time for blackeyed peas for luck, greens for money, macaroni and cheese because it's delicious. Wine, bubbly, sparkling juices, and mixers of any ilk. Chips, dips, cheese trays, veggie plates--people are tired now, and full, and the New Year's eve party is for drinking not eating, though the groceries still fly out the door in eagerly laden carts.
So here, with a full helping of happy memories and tangential musings, are the dishes I made to celebrate the 2010 Feasting Season.