I think the biggest problem with Thanksgiving is when you forget about the peripheral meals.  There are the friends who drop by the day before because they are in town.  There is tea after the New Yorkers come in after their longer than expected drive.  There is lunch on Wednesday for the whoever came in last night and aunt Margaret who just got picked up at the airport.  There is Thanksgiving day breakfast.

Our newest Thanksgiving routine has been to gather in the morning for our Thanksgiving Family Triathlon.  The three legs are stretch, bike, and run.  The children have a short bike ride and run to the end of the block.  The adults (minus a few who take care of the kids and the kitchen) go for a long ride and run down Huron Ave.  We then have a light lunch and finish preparing the Thanksgiving meal which starts early and always ends later than expected.

Our peripheral meals usually involve lunch and a Wednesday night dinner:  this will be our weekly pizza and salad.  Thursday morning breakfast:  this usually involves a trip to Hi Rise and if we get to it homemade sticky buns from Vermont’s Baba a Louis’ Bakery Cookbook on loan from Grandma.  Thursday’s post Triathlon lunch:  soup and bread.

I try to have the usual suspects on hand for the children: things I know they will eat.  I expect that they will also partake in some of the other offerings.  I also try to have a lot of things that are easy to pull out and make a decent spread:  dips, hummus, olives, pita bread, some cheeses, veggies for slicing or crudites, fancy cheese crackers, chips and salsa, nuts, and perhaps one or two prepared foods.  This year I have been eyes some of what Sofra has to offer as well as Petsi Pies and Clear Flour Bakery.  Petsi Pies has a savory Roasted Vegetable Spinach Ricotta open faced pie.

Some great offerings for peripheral meals at Clear Flour would be their Spinach Onion and Gruyere Quiche or Boston Brown Bread (just add some cream cheese topped with smoked salmon, some goat cheese with a sliver of sun-dried tomato or roasted red pepper, or a slice of good cheddar and a slice of tart apple).  For tea or breakfast Clear Flour has Cranberry Orange Almond Tea Cake, Pumpkin Buns, and Grandma B’s Pull Apart Sweet Rolls.

It is not online, but Sofra Bakery has some great offerings also for those peripheral meals.  For tea they offer Nan’s Pumpkin Bread, Crunchy Crumbly, Cornmeal-Almond Torta, Pumpkin Jam Tart (I am addicted to their pumpkin turnover), Fig-Almond Serpentine, Pear-Almond Umm Ali.  For the lunches and dinners they have oven-ready savory pies:  Cheese Borek, Carrot Kibbeh, Spanakopitta, Farmers Market Tart..  Also perfect to pull out for lunch, dinner, snack are items from their Mezze Bar:  Smokey Eggplant Puree, Bean Plaki, Armenian Bean and Walnut Pate, Skordalia, Moroccan Carrot Salad, Syrian-Style Lentils, Beet Tzatziki, Moroccan Goat Cheese, Labne with Pecans, Green Olive & Walnut Salad, Whipped Feta with Sweet and Hot Peppers. A little of these tasty treats goes a long way.  I think I will probably head over to Sofra for breakfast with my mom and whoever wants to join us and we will pick up a few of these tasty treats to pull out when needed for meals over the days before and after Thanksgiving.

I will be making my shopping list for the main meal in the next day or so and will start hitting the farmer’s markets and shops on Friday and early next week.  Then I have to lay out my game plan, buy what I need for peripheral meals and we’ll be good to go!

Bon appetit.  ttyl your BFF (Boston Family Foodie)

For more info: Clear Flour Bread, Petsi Pies,
Sofra Bakery, Baba a Louis Bakery