I am hopeless about following recipes. I just make it up as I go along. Thanksgiving’s cranberry sauce really pleased me. I cooked Island organic berries in apple cider until they popped. I finished the job with a potato masher. After adding just a teaspoon of beet sugar, I decided to add some dried cranberries instead of sweetness. I suppose one could use raisins or any dried fruit. I chopped a couple of apples into the mix as well as a generous handful of roughly cut walnuts.

I have been eating the leftovers in my morning yogurt. I should make it more often. I don’t know why we only eat certain foods around the holidays.

Another such enjoyable food is bread stuffing. This year I made bread a week or so ahead, cut it into cubes, and allowed it to dry out a bit. Along with the usual onions, celery and herbs I added some Grey Barn breakfast sausage. It was a fine dish that stood alone and could be eaten anytime of the year.

I’m a big fan of homemade bread. I laughed out loud recently at a bumper sticker that read, I Love Gluten.

This year I divided the leftovers into several meal-sized containers and tossed them into the freezer. I’ll enjoy them mid-winter.

In June, after I picked my strawberries, I confess to ignoring the patch for the rest of the hot, dry summer. Oops! Most of the plants died. Big surprise. I noticed a few hardy runners that survived. I moved them into my hoophouse. My friend Sharlee did the same several years ago, and was rewarded with berries a full month ahead of the outdoor ones. Hope springs eternal.

I had to go off-Island on the Monday following Thanksgiving. I did not make a car reservation. At 5:30 a.m. I was car number three in the standby line and did not make the 6 a.m. boat. Another one ran at 6:30 a.m. and I was the only standby car that squeezed onto that boat. Wow, I guess the holiday shoppers all went off that day.

We had breakfast at the County Fare, a small diner on Main street, Falmouth. A flock of a dozen or so male turkeys gathered at the entrance and on my car. They were displaying and slightly threatening. However, they were congregating around a chalk board that read: “Hot Turkey Sandwiches.” This amused fellow diners and passersby.

Violet brought home Yujin Hong, a South Korean international student from Tabor Academy. She had never had a Thanksgiving holiday. We spent time explaining traditions around the day. I think I may have simplified it to, “We cook for days and then eat for 20 minutes and spend the rest of the day moaning because we are so full.”

At any rate, it was fun to see our holiday in someone else’s eyes.

We did have a few Donald Trump conversations. She remarked, “We live less than 500 miles from a nutcase with nuclear weapons and our whole country is extremely anxious.”

I encouraged her to call her parents and say that many Americans are equally uneasy and did not vote for Trump.

In other news, Fidel Castro is dead. I’m old enough to remember the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Our C.I.A. backed the operations and pretty much bullied J.F.K. to give the orders. He had only held office for a few months.

I wonder what will happen with Obama’s executive order opening up relations with our 90-mile-way island nation? Are we going to that well-known place in a handbasket?