Well, it started because I didn’t want to serve mashed potatoes and gravy with the turkey. Instead, I served sweet potatoes, with a little butter and a little cinnamon, and after we three grownups had a serving each, my 15-month-old great grandson ate the rest of them. I made the gravy after dinner as I cleaned up the kitchen and started a turkey bone broth. I boiled a lot of potatoes because I bought a big bag of them, and I also bought leeks and made leek and potato soup, enough to give a jar away to a neighbour who needs some TLC. Then I had to make leeks vinaigrette—fiddly because of cleaning the leeks but I had already done that. So today, Matt is coming for dinner: mashed [potatoes and gravy with cooked turkey morsels. He is also coming for lunch because he has a dentist appointment and I need him to help me stack the balcony furniture preparatory to being wrapped for winter. (I’m not as strong as I was. I need help, paid or unpaid.) So we’ll have leek and potato soup for lunch, and I sliced some mini cucumbers, tossed with salt and dill weed (and maybe some yogurt, not necessary). Also I made broccoli slaw: carrots; partially cooked broccoli stems, mainly; walnuts; raisins; celery; red onion; and mayo mixed with a little honey. Ir’s a nice combo of salad and dessert.

I had leftover whipped dream from dessert—not pie but a fruit compote with a little kirsch in the whipped cream; the leftover went nicely in coffee the next morning (coffee mit schlag!). I made a turkey liver paté blended with cream cheese for part of the hors d’oeuvres, with crackers.(The rest of the giblets went into the gravy.) I also served thin prosciutto slices wrapped around (small) wedges of green melon (with champagne). The remaining bits of prosciutto made a snack for me last night with some cubes of cantaloupe fished from the fruit compote.

See, my turkey dinner was not fattening. No bread, no stuffing, no pie, no gravy—until the next meal.

And lovely leftovers.