I have my menu planned and most of the food bought.

I decided on a turkey breast bone in. Then another main dish is the vegetarian nut loaf that has been our standard on Thanksgiving. It’s the recipe from Tassajara cooking and I’ve used it for the last 25 years, maybe more.

I’ll make our standard whipped mashed potatoes, vegetarian gravy, green beans, fresh cranberry sauce, and stuffing and some Hawaiin rolls. I keep the menu quite simple as it’s just too much to do all kinds of sides and salads.

It’s only the four of us as my brother generally goes to his buddies house on Thanksgiving.  I usually make cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then we eat our meal around 2pm. No football here. But we will go for a nice walk in the park. I’m not sure what the weather is doing next week so we’ll see.

I make the nut loaf usually on Tuesday and refrigerate. Then I make the mashed potatoes on Wednesday so they just need reheating on Thursday. I try and do all my prepping Wednesday like cutting vegetables ie: onions, celery etc for the stuffing.

I used to make pies but most of the time we don’t wouldn’t finish them so now I just buy a Costco pie and I freeze it then only serve a portion.

The key is just to keep it simple with foods you like. Over the years we have considered going out to eat or just having tacos but in the end, I like the tradition of Thanksgiving food.

I’m thinking tough of the fire victims who have lost everything. Thanksgiving will certainly be different for them and quite sad. All those houses are gone and the death toll keeps going up. I am grateful to our amazing firefighters for all the hard work they have done and are continuing to do. I read on the local Facebook page many evacuees are camped in parking lots all around Chico. Plus the air quality is so bad that Chico State and Sacramento State universities have canceled classes.

On a separate note, here are a few pictures of after doing the bathroom zone. I’m totally into using these eucalyptus branches. When the shower is going I squeeze them and it smells like eucalyptus in the bathroom.