To brine or not to brine? That’s the topic among all of my foodie friends this week, and when it comes to cooking turkey, everyone’s got an opinion on the way it ought to be done. Only one other Thanksgiving dish is as hotly debated: the stuffing.

In our house, since I cook Thanksgiving dinner pretty much solo, I get to make the decisions: we brine. Also, there is only one kind of stuffing: the Southern cornbread type. The rest is actually dressing, and as far as I’m concerned you can keep it.

But back to the brining thing: this year, since we aren’t inviting company to join us, we’d hoped to get a small turkey. Quite a bit of other folks seemed to have had the same idea, judging by the relatively meager supply of gargantuan-sized birds left at the grocery store. Maybe the high cost of gasoline is keeping more folks home-bound to enjoy a simple holiday like we’re planning?

So here I am with an 18-pound turkey and only three mouths to feed. (My daughter is still at her father’s.) Even as I was hauling that bird into my shopping cart, my mind was already on what to do with all the leftovers: turkey and white bean soup, turkey hotpot, turkey tettrazini, turkey sandwiches, turkey salad… you get the idea.

I have a kitchen-sized trash can that spends 11 months and 28 days of the year holding out-of-season clothing. Come this time of year, it actually gets used for the purpose that led me to buy the thing: as a container in which to brine our turkey. I gave it a good scrub last night — you can never be too careful, after all — and filled it with brine before wrestling the frozen bird into the bath where it’ll sit defrosting (hopefully) in our spare fridge until Thursday.

Meanwhile, I figured it was time to clean out last Thanksgiving’s leftovers from the freezer. That’s right: I had some year-old turkey because last year we wound up with an 18-pounder and only 5 mouths to feed. As far as my cats are concerned, it’s already Christmas: they gnawed on turkey all morning and are now passed out in sunny spots around the house.

Then I made cornbread for our stuffing.

To Yankees, the very thought of making cornbread and leaving it out to dry for three entire days before making stuffing out of it is utterly appalling. That’s OK with me: I’m pretty grossed out by that slop some people eat that has sausage or oysters (or, like my husband’s grandmother’s recipe, with ground beef, macaroni and rice!) in it. Stuffing — true stuffing — requires only a handful of ingredients. Plus butter. Lots of butter.

In fact, it’s the smell of celery and onion simmering in butter with just the right amount of sage that signals the arrival of the holidays in our house. If I could capture that scent in an air freshener, I’d be spraying the place religiously come mid-November just to get us into the spirit of the season.

As for pumpkin pie? We don’t do it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the stuff. I just know better than to make a pie because I’ll wind up being the one waking up at 2 o’clock in the morning to have “just one more nibble” which eventually turns into a small slice. Then a bigger one. Then half the pie. But, just like the other smells that remind me of the holiday, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without the warm scent of pumpkin filling the house. So this year I’m making my husband’s favorite: Pumpkin Dump Cake, which is a bit too rich for my tastes.

Mashed potatoes? You betcha. Gravy? Of course.

Cranberries? Well, that’s where we never, ever agree. He likes the smooth cranberry gel that still plops out of the can still bearing ridges. I like a homemade cranberry relish with orange peel and a bit of a bite. My son won’t touch either, at least not until the day after Thanksgiving when I slip cranberry sauce into his leftover turkey sandwich.

As for the other side dishes, well, that’s where I run out of ideas. When my daughter’s here, green bean casserole is a must, but the rest of us don’t like it. Since she’s at her father’s this year, none of us have to choke down a couple of spoonfuls and pretend to enjoy it.

What’s your Thanksgiving meal like?

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