A Feast of Sides

As much as I love the turkey--and I do make one mean turkey (recipe coming soon... perhaps)--it's the sides that really make Thanksgiving. Every year I try something new. The pierogis , which are now a holiday staple were once, years ago, a "new thing." They were an experiment on the first Thanksgiving that my brother came to visit and they took hours. More than five hours. The next day, my arms ached.

Quails have been a bit of a theme these past two years. Last year, I made glazed quail that I arranged around the turkey like tiny little roasted babies, nestled 'neath their roasted mother. It was pretty beautiful.

This year, I thought I'd try quail eggs. Sadly, it was not to be. I had planned on making Scotch eggs, but ran out of time. Instead, I hard boiled them and we made a salted butter and truffle dip for them. Needless to say, they were delicious. But--seriously--everything made with truffles is delicious (within reason, obviously, I'm fully aware that there are bad cooks out there).

Our good friends supplied the absolutely delicious bean dip, bread pudding and spinach dip.

Feather Scarf Part #1

1)  Cut fabric in the scarf shape you like and arrange the feathers by length and the direction to which they bend.

2) Use the longest feathers for the first layer. Tallest feather in the middle and place the ones that bend to the right on the right hand side and left bending on the left side.

3) Add a dab of glue to each feather to hold it in place for the next step.

4) Sew the feathers to the fabric.

5) Repeat, using shorter and shorter feathers for each layer until the fabric is covered.

6) Add a trim to the bottom in order to cover the feather stems and keep them from irritating your neck.

Some of my favorite memories are of trying to communicate with birds. I remember sitting on the dilapidated fence in our side yard, looking up at doves on the telephone wires and trying to speak to them in what I now call "bird talk." Which was actually just human talk in a cooing birdlike voice. Eventually I actually became good at emulating their twittering and was even able get them to respond back.

Now, as an adult, I tend to twitter and chirp (literally, not electronically), while thinking. It's something I don't even notice doing until someone points it out. And, of course, my love of feathers has never faded.

In the summer, I wear feathers in my hair almost daily, but in Winter, scarves and jackets tend to damage them. So, they hang on the wall among my necklaces until Spring when it is warm enough to shed my outerwear.

Lately, I've been trying to find a way to incorporate feathers into my winter wardrobe in some non-destructive way. So, I thought, why not a scarf?

This is the first step, which is repeated until the entirety of the fabric is covered. Feathers are somewhat difficult to sew through, even with a sewing machine, and there is quite a bit of hand sewing that must also be done. Despite this, the design is relatively simple. All together, with the gluing, sewing by machine and by hand, it took almost 10 hours, so give yourself a couple days and prepare to be patient.