Thanksgiving has a way of creeping up on me before I am ready for it! The fall is such a busy season for me and there is always lots to do.
This year, I cooked the full turkey dinner. It’s a lot of work but nothing beats a home-cooked turkey dinner and the best part…..there are leftovers!
The color theme for my tablesetting was orange. The table linen is a soft white which really allows the charger plates and other elements of this tablesetting to stand out.
I found these lovely burnt orange charger plates with a leaf motif on them. I will use these right through the autumn season, not just for Thanksgiving dinner.
I have had the leaf-designed napkin rings for awhile and the pumpkin-themed napkins pair well with them.
The centerpiece is really nothing more than herbs from our garden and some leaves picked from nearby ditches. My mother has some bayberry bushes on her property so bay leaves form the base of the centerpiece. I also added some oregano and sage which both smell wonderful and then some bright yellow frothy dill for pops of color. The centerpiece cost me nothing and only took very few minutes to pull together.
I have added in some little votives wrapped in birch bark to keep the natural look flowing.
Some small pumpkin-shaped gourds tucked in around the centerpiece give an authentic Thanksgiving look to the table.
I tend to use a lot of heavier cut glass in autumn – the candlelight picks up the cuts in the glass and makes them quite enchanting.
The placesetting is quite simple. I was setting a rather small table and, with the centerpiece, there was no extra room on the table. I wasn’t serving either a salad or soup course so there was no need for extra cutlery. The dessert fork and spoon were brought to the table when the dinner plates were cleared and dessert served. If there is room, I often include them at the top of the plates but this setting didn’t permit the space.
I like to present the turkey, dressed, on a large platter. Sometimes, I use it as the table centerpiece and, other times, I have it placed on a sideboard in the dining room.
To “dress” this turkey for dinner, I have opted to go with a seasonal red-green-yellow theme, choosing corn on the cob, cranberries, and rosemary and bay leaves along with some whole chestnuts.
I mixed some finely chopped fresh herbs with melted butter and basted the turkey with this mixture – I like the black-specks on the turkey! I think it gives the bird some character!
It is not necessary, of course, to “dress” the turkey for table presentation. The turkey can, instead, be carved in the kitchen out of sight of the guests and brought to the table. I always like to see it nicely carved and presented on a meat platter.
Make the platter look more attractive by inserting a few fresh herbs, here and there, to fill in any open spaces and to give definition to the platter.
To view other Thanksgiving tablesettings from My Island Bistro Kitchen, click on the following links:
Thanksgiving Tablescape
Thanksgiving Tablesetting
Happy Thanksgiving!
