A belated wish to you and yours for a peaceful Thanksgiving and a gentle entry into the high drama and activity of December.

My Thanksgiving dinner hit most of the marks, but not all.  Turkey was delicious, slow-cooked on a barbecue and lavishly seasoned with garlic olive oil, Hawaiian sea salt, fresh rosemary and sage and some secret toppings.  Very moist and looked handsome, too.  The dressing this year was indeed baked in a muffin tin, which the guests liked as much as I did.

Did I fall for a trendy new recipe?  Nope: stuck to the old classic:  dried bread from Southside Food Pavilion, vegetable broth (a nod to the vegetarians among us), diced onion and chopped celery sauteed in a cube of butter, salt and pepper and eggs, baked till hot but not hard as a rock.  Everyone raved over this special recipe, and what could have been easier than watching the Macy's Day Parade and the National Dog Show while leisurely cooking this up?

The other big hit of the day was the potato dish.  I had my issues, previously discussed, with stuffing and potatoes as almost the same thing.  But I went with scalloped potatoes, again very simple: sliced and layered with heavy cream flavored with sliced garlic and topped with lots of fresh Parmesan cheese, baked till a little crunchy on top.  My guests practically licked the dish clean! 

The maybe dish:  a roasted vegetable pie, chock full of winter vegs like turnips, rutabagas, onions, Yukon gold potatoes, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, carrots.  I slow-cooked them to soften them up in olive oil, then did a mash-up with fresh herbs like basil, thyme and sage, roasting them in the oven for an hour or so.  I put them in a pie plate and topped it with a pie crust brushed with olive oil.  Looked great, and the vegan among us liked it, but no one else was enthusiastic.  Too many vegetables, I suppose.  Grandma's old chestnut, the cucumbers and onions in vinegar, sugar and lots of salt, had their loyal denizons, on the other hand.

The not-next-year-dish:  sliced broccoli baked with jalapeno cheddar cheese, cream of broccoli soup and soup cream.  Kind of blah and boring, and people took a spoonful just to be polite.  Also, same with the salad:  why bother?  People were eating to eat the turkey, the stuffing, the potatoes, the fresh bread and butter...and dessert, of course. 

I don't care for pumpkin pie, but ran out of time to do anything else pumpkin.  So I baked some shortbread cookies, both brown sugar and standard variety, as well as some kiss cookies.  The cookies were a big hit and I had none left by last night.  The pumpkin pie, on the other hand, was still there.

I had three big dog guests at Thanksgiving this year.  For their meal, they each got a bite of turkey and were very thankful:  one took it a little farther and made a bold and successful bid for all the butter in the butter dish.  What could I do?  It's one of the few days all year we are expected, even encouraged, to overindulge...even our animal companions!

This holiday season, more than ever before, our local food-based charities need our help.  That is why The Markets are partnering with Food For All for the eleventh year in a row. 

Please help us raise money for our local food banks by joining us now through January 2 in all our stores.  Look at the checkout for boards stocked with $1, $3 and $5 donation coupons when you are paying for your groceries.  It's easy:  just hand a coupon to your checker to be scanned.  Your donation every time you shop will help feed the hungry, over half of whom are children.

Your donation appears on your register receipt, and is tax deductible.  Once Food For All concludes, the money raised is distributed to the food organizations, in time for the slump in giving that happens after the holidays.

Our recipients this year include the following organizations:  Senior Meals on Wheels, Helping Hands Food Bank of Sedro Woolley, Arlington Food Bank, Oso Food  Bank, Nooksack Valley Food Bank, Bellingham Food Bank, Salt of the Earth Food Bank, Anacortes 100 Food Bank, Blaine Food Bank, Project Hope, Lighthouse Mission, Ferndale Food Bank, Southside Food Bank, Wenatchee Food Bank, Selah Civic Center Food Bank, Wapato Food Bank, Moses Lake Food Bank, Wenatchee Food Bank and Prosser Senior Center.

The Markets has raised over $160,000 to feed the hungry through Food For All.  Please help us this year to put food on the table for our hungry neighbors.  Thank you for your gifts and your generosity.  For information about Food For All, a national nonprofit organization with over 6,000 retail participants nationwide, check out www.foodforall.org .

So it's approaching the decision day for the big T-Day meal and I'm struggling with the same issue I face each year:  isn't stuffing the same as potatoes?

Since it's no longer considered a food safe practice to stuff your turkey, stuffing is now cooked outside the bird.  I saw a clever way to do this:  create individual stuffings for each guest in a muffin tin.  It looked cute and seemed to be a way to solve having too much stuffing left over.

But to my point, stuffing is just bread  and it just goes against my grain to serve bread and potatoes in the same meal.  And if I serve potatoes, do I serve the sweet potatoes or yams or mashed or scalloped?  If I serve stuffing, do I have to have rolls or other kinds of bread on the table, too?  Too much of the same stuff, I think.

Maybe it depends on what you grew up with on Thanksgiving, but I cautiously announced that I was abandoning stuffing this year in favor of bigger-flavored potatoes, mashed with lots of garlic, butter, sour cream and horseradish.  Yum!  However, my diners protested mightily, about how much they love stuffing and wouldn't it be wrong to not have a potato dish?

So, I'm scanning the stuffing recipes.  I could do the beloved basic that I woke up to every November morning before the Macy's Day Parade:  sauteed onions and celery, mixed with dried white bread, broth and eggs, seasoned with sage and pepper and salt.  Just a basic stuffing that always tasted the same (except we cooked it inside the bird, so it had extra fat and flavor).  I tried cornbread once with cranberries and pecans, but that didn't go over well.  Another year was the oysters, yet another crumbled sausage in a hearty peasant bread mix. 

But my diners want the traditiional, the one they have gobbled up year after year.  And I, their dutiful chef, will appease them once again.  But I will be a little subversive and add some new dishes to my table, like a Tuscan cauliflower, a spinach and gorgonzola salad and a pumpkin-caramel cake, instead of...pie.  No, wait, I have to have pie, they say.  Hey, why not both?! 

We are partnering with Housing Hope in Snohomish County (www.housinghope.org)  to help "Paint The Town With Hope" this holiday season.

Housing Hope is a Snohomish nonprofit organization that helps local families with basic housing and shelter needs.  Their goal is a hand up, not a hand out. 

At our Arlington Food Pavilion and Everett Cost Cutter stores, there will be paint buckets available to drop in donations towards Housing Hope.  The buckets will be on display with information about Housing Hope through December 9, so we hope you have an opportunity to help support this worthy group.

When the weather turns cold and wet, and everyone around you seems to be snuffling or sneezing, it's a good time to protect yourself with a hearty bowl of soup.

There's something about hot soup that makes me feel better when I'm battling the seasonal sniffles.  There is some scientific evidence that chicken noodle soup does help you feel better.  I believe it's a combination of the hot, steamy liquid with the soft vegetables and the chunks of chicken, anchored by thick egg noodles, that promotes healing.  Even if it can't be validated, it makes me feel better just spooning it down, accompanied by corn muffins or a slice of sourdough.

So I made a big batch of homemade chicken soup.  It's easy:  about 6-8 cups of water, some raw chicken breasts or thighs (you can also use cooked chicken, but the bones impart some extra flavor to the soup stock), chopped carrots, onions and celery.  Heat to boiling and simmer for an hour or so.  About 15 minutes before serving, toss in a handful of noodles and cook until they are al dente, or soft as Italian pasta.  Season to taste.  You can add garlic, which also promotes well-being.  This soup can be frozen and reheated.  If it thickens too much when it's refrigerated, just add more liquid.  It's usually eaten within a day.

On a roll, I next made beef noodle soup with leftover pot roast and added some potatoes near the end of the simmer stage, and that was a big hit, too.  On to split pea soup, which couldn't be easier, especially since I had a big piece of cooked ham that needed to be reworked into something. Split pea and lentil soup are exceptionally hearty, and are stand-alone meals in themselves.

Next up for my soup kitchen efforts is some kind of curry.  Curry is one of those spices that really heats you up, and if you like the flavor of curry, there is no end to what you can add.  I've included apples, coconut, some peanuts for garnish, sweet potatoes and green beans, along with slivers of chicken.  Curry in soup just makes me feel good.  The hotter the curry, the better!

Finally, there's the southwest twist on chicken noodle soup.  It's a chicken soup stock, heavily flavored with plenty of fresh lime juice, subbing out pieces of tortilla instead of noodles, and stirring in some fresh chiles, chopped into spicy little bits.  This is a soup with meat on its bones, so to speak, and it will keep you warm and full all through autumn. 

Does anyone have a soup that works wonders when you've got a cold?  And, what ingredients do you like to include in your homemade soup?

The Markets was recently selected as a Master Marketer by Supervalu, Inc., our wholesale supplier, in a national competition highlighting the best retail merchandising practices among over 4,300 supermarkets.

The award was one of 16 given from over 300 nominations.  The Markets received recognition in the category of Store Brands/Value Brand Bargains. 

Focusing on its own store brands, The Markets ran a one-week long promotion highlighting various private label brands, including Flavorite, Homelife, Baby Basics and Shoppers Value.  Through a blend of in-store displays in all departments, dedicated advertising and cross merchandising, the promotion was a resounding success.

Even more than the award recognition, The Markets' private label brands offer our customers quality at great prices.  That's even better than an award!

Okay, the nanaimo bars were heaven if you just had the bottom and middle layers.  The bottom, chcolate-flavored and full of nutty coconut, topped with the middle layer of confectionery sugar, butter and vanilla pudding were tasty and satisfying.

However, the melted candy corn topping, mixed with more powdered sugar and even more butter, plus a smidge of salt, was way over the top on the sweetness scale.  The whole thing looked beautiful:  pale orange atop the chocolate, very festive.

The taste was another thing altogether.  The candy corn, having been melted, had a slightly chemical flavor.  The salt helped cut the sweetness, but it really was not a recipe I'd suggest making again.  In fact, I might not even eat candy corn again. 

Since then, I've seen lots of suggestions for melting down Halloween candy into pie crusts, cookies, cakes and the like.  I think not.  Appreciate them for what they are and save the real stuff for desserts.