Cranberry Sauce, Cape Cod style

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday: all that matters is food and family (and football if any of you watched the Pats dominate last night).  Christmas is great, but a little over-rated in my opinion and, to be honest, I've never really recovered from finding out that Santa doesn't exist.  But Thanksgiving will never let me down: even if the turkey were burnt to a crisp, I wouldn't even mind as long as there was one thing on the table... CRANBERRY SAUCE.

Now, I could use this time as a mini-history lesson on Thanksgiving and its origins... The story of the Pilgrims landing on Cape Cod in 1620 was pretty much drilled into us every year around this time in elementary school.  I don't remember many of the details and I'm pretty sure Thanksgiving has roots much deeper than that, but it still feels pretty cool to celebrate this holiday so close to the Pilgrims' first landing.  The traditional Thanksgiving fare makes a lot more sense with the flock of turkeys constantly hanging out in our backyard and the nearby dunes, full of wild cranberry bogs just waiting to be picked.

I've never tried sauce from a tin can, but homemade cranberry sauce is delicious and actually very easy to make.  My siblings and I agree that cranberry sauce goes with basically everything (especially turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes); I also love it on vanilla ice cream, various pies and cake, or just plain with a spoon.  For anyone curious, here is my mother's cranberry sauce recipe (modified from the Joy of Cooking):

      Place in a saucepan and stir until the sugar is dissolved:

• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 2 ½ C orange juice
• 1 ½ C sugar
• 2 stalks rhubarb (optional)

      Boil the syrup for about 5 minutes. Pick over, wash and add:

• 9 C cranberries

      Simmer the berries in the syrup very gently without stirring (uncovered) until the berries are translucent, about 5 minutes. Skim off any foam. Add:

• 1 jar of orange marmalade

      Pour the berries into 1 large container; chill until firm.

 Enjoy!