I hope you all are ready for Thanksgiving. R is flying home tomorrow to visit with his folks, and F isn't coming home until next week, so I will have dinner with my friend Kristina and her family.

Kristina told me that her sister instructed her to get at least a 24-pound turkey this year.

"Does your family kick in to help pay for this?" I asked.

"No, they don't have any money," K said.

"People left the table hungry last year?" I asked.

"No," Kristina said, "but they'll all want to take leftovers home."

That's family for you!

But I admit to having grilled Kristina about the kind of gravy she will have to put on the dressing. K doesn't have any strong feelings about gravy one way or the other. I then quizzed the internet, and my mom, about how one goes about making giblet gravy. And I put together some chicken broth I had in my freezer, some onion and celery, and a bit of flour I stirred into some of the broth and then returned to the mix, and separately, a couple of boiled eggs to be chopped and added, and delivered this to her today so that all she has to do is chop the turkey innards and put them in and simmer. And I'll be bringing chocolate chip pies as well.

Jeff at Quidplura offers this recipe that appears to have stood the test of time:

A goos in hogepotte. —Take a Goos, & make hure clene, & hacke hyre to gobettys, & put yn a potte, & Water to, & sethe to-gederys; þan take Pepir & Brennyd brede, or Blode y-boyled, & grynd y-fere Gyngere & Galyngale & Comyn, & temper vppe with Ale, & putte it þer-to; & mynce Oynonys, & frye hem in freysshe grece, & do þer-to a porcyon of Wyne.

He made a run at this dish, and offers his observations on the results, with pictures.