Yesterday 8 year old Maddie and I made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner by adding 4 cups of fresh glistening cranberries to 1 cup sugar dissolved in 1 cup water (brought to boil) and adding the zest of a large Meyer lemon which Maddie had just picked from our tree! She is a good lemon picker and very good at zesting! All 13 of our family gathered to enjoy our feast; our cranberry sauce was well enjoyed.
My early years included cranberries simply as a jellied sauce in a can that was opened at both ends to push out a can shaped mound that could be sliced. This was passed around with chicken and dressing at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. I remember eating any leftover cranberry sauce on toast for breakfast along with a sausage link. Sometime in the next few years, cranberry as a color became popular. It was the color I chose for our Christmastime wedding in 1963. I designed and made my wedding gown, and also chose cranberry faille coat dresses with white organdy colors for my bridesmaids. Four years later, my mother made me a cranberry suede cloth dress with a square neck and an empire waistline - a generous one because it was a maternity dress. On the sideboard in my dining room is a cranberry glass dish given to me by my grandmother, along with 2 small cranberry glass vases.
My affinity for the color and the berry has grown - I have almost always included the color cranberry in decorating our home, and have a good number of ways I use the berries in my kitchen! A well-loved book we enjoyed with our boys when they were little (and still enjoy with our granddaughters) is titled Cranberry Thanksgiving, referenced in posts in this blog as well as my kitchen story blog - links are below.
www.mappingsforthismorning.blogspot.com/search?q=cranberry+thanksgiving
www.kitchenkeepers.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/cranberries-on-my-mind/
www.kitchenkeepers.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/cranberry-orange-butter/
Do you like cranberries? I would love to hear your favorite cranberry stories!
