Thanksgiving cooking frenzy is WELL under way.

The pumpkin pie is made. (Alas, I'm still on a path in getting pie crust that doesn't put up a fight. Still, the filling smells good, despite not having any fresh ginger, or any ginger at all, for that matter. I reckon that bit of carefully hoarded maple syrup I added has covered the gap nicely.)

The blueberry-cornbread stuffing with onion and sage is made, and waiting for the quite-massive turkey to finish defrosting.

The sweet potatoes have been peeled, cut up, and boiled, and are awaiting their ultimate destiny: to be combined with honey, pecans, pepperoni, and red pepper, and roasted a whole lot.

The green beans are cut up and blanched, and are chilling in the fridge (literally and figuratively) to await their ultimate destiny: to become seared green beans with sesame, garlic, and chili.

The mushrooms are chopped, ready to be fried in butter when the time comes.

Gravy will materialize, if I feel like it, at the end of the process. There are no mashed pototoes this year at the actual Thanksgiving feast, but it occurs to me that a bit of gravy would make a nice addition to leftovers.

Houston has said he will procure a nice bottle of rosé.

Have I forgotten anything? It seems like it's an awful lot of food for just three people, but I'm sure to have left something out that I'd desperately wanted to serve this year.

Oh, wait — I did forget: cherries and mangoes, both more or less in season here, as an adjunct to dessert. It's an advantage of a southern-hemisphere Thanksgiving.