Countdown to the feast ...

I have a 16-pound turkey waiting for me this year at Fleisher's market (which sells grass-fed, local, sustainably raised meat) and a host of choices for preparing it. I believe I'll follow Chef Tom Griffiths's brining directions for making the most delicious turkey (which he wrote about last year in Hudson Valley Connoisseur magazine and which we're offering as a free download on the magazine's Web site.) I also just read in a recent Poughkeepsie Journal ad that the McEnroe Organic Farm on Route 22 in northeast Dutchess County is selling their own heritage breed turkeys. Might be worth a call to see if there are any left ...

And although I'm not in charge of selecting the wine for our meal this year, I believe I will steer the person entrusted with that job to that same download, where HVC magazine wines columnist, CIA wine and spirits professor Michael Arthur Weiss, lists wines that pair extraordinarily well with holiday foods. ;-)

A few locally grown or produced foods that might very well make it onto our menu: kale from Migliorelli Farmstand on Route 199 in Rhinebeck (the east side of the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge approach)-- my family eats their kale a lot -- YUM!; Yukon gold potatoes from Story Farm in Catskill; cider from Stone Ridge Orchards (love the Asian pear cider); cornbread stuffing with cornmeal ground by Don Lewis in Pleasant Valley (you can find it at the local Amish market in Hyde Park and the Adams Fairacre Farms markets in Poughkeepsie, Kingston and Newburgh if you ask); milk from Hudson Valley Fresh; garlic we picked up at this year's Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties (haven't decided yet on which variety); cherry tomatoes that were the last of the season in my garden and which have ripened perfectly in my cellar; apple pie, apple crisp, apple sauce, apple cake ... using fruit from all the wonderful apple orchards in the area (my personal favorite is Montgomery Place Orchards on Route 9G in Red Hook but I know our designated apple pie baker likes to pick up her apples at Dolan Orchards on Route 208 in Wallkill.)

Please share any of your fave places for picking up local ingredients for your Thanksgiving meal -- I'd love to know what's going to be on your table. And be sure to visit the magazine's Web site to download the turkey and wine information. Bon appetit!