Tomorrow I’m cooking my very first turkey, and I’m a little nervous. Twelve years of vegetarianism made Thanksgiving pretty easy, especially those holidays where a Tofurky was the featured dish. All you have to do with a Tofurky is thaw it out, baste and bake. (And if you forget to take it out of the freezer, you just bake it longer. No sweat.)

I picked up my fresh turkey this morning, compliments of my awesome-but-unnamed employer. It’s nestled in my refrigerator until tomorrow morning. Over my lunch hour, I picked up a roasting pan and a carving knife/fork set, along with a popup thermometer thing and a string-and-pins mechanism for sewing up the turkey’s opening after stuffing it.

We’ll also be making mashed potatoes and green bean casserole with produce from our CSA farm, and my mom is bringing pies. I need to figure out a stuffing recipe. The kids want Pete to bake his oat and honey bread.

Uh-oh, do I need to get a giant platter for the turkey? And where am I going to store all this stuff the other 364 days of the year?