It's Time to Talk Turkey

Thanksgiving dinner can be a cook's dream or a novice's nightmare. If you love your ingredients fresh and local, we've got some info for you on where to get your turkeys. If you want to relax and have the work done for you, there are a few solutions for that to.

If staying close to the house and close to the earth is on your list of Thanksgiving must-dos, then you may want to order up one of the ’s Pasture Raised Turkeys. These are what they call, heritage turkeys and, according to the Farm Institute, they are great foragers and extremely simple to raise. The Farm Institute raises close to 150 turkeys each year for the Thanksgiving holiday and favors the Royal Palm and Narragansett breeds. They also raise Bourbon Reds, Chocolates, Black Spanish, White Holland and Blue Slates. Heritage turkeys are raised in moveable electric fencing (which often does not even need to be turned on) and rotated through pastures after the cows, goats and sheep. Heritage turkeys are able to fly and move about easily, something that factory raised turkeys cannot do because they are bred to have extremely large breasts and thighs. Heritage turkeys are about evenly divided between dark and white meat and are extremely juicy.

You can order a heritage turkey from the Farm Institute or from . Orders must be placed by November 17^th and cost is $6.50 lb. Also available from Morning Glory are Bongi’s Turkeys. These turkeys are raised and processed on a family farm in Duxbury. The Bongi turkeys must be ordered by November 16^th and cost $3.65 lb. Turkeys have to be picked up on November 21^st and don’t forget to use your Island Card, they are good on turkey’s too.

Over at , you can order Bell & Evans Turkeys from now until they run out, and those go for $3.75 lb. Edgartown Meat & Seafood will be closed on Thanksgiving, but they will be selling sides and pies on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Speaking of pies, you can order Thanksgiving pies from all sorts of wonderful Island pie makers. will have pumpkin, apple-cranberry, blueberry-cranberry harvest, pecan and apple-blueberry available to order until Tuesday the 22^nd. will have pumpkin, pecan and coffee-toffee pecan, apple and ginger spice cranberry-apple streusel to order until Monday the 21^st. will have 9-inch apple, apple-cranberry crumb, chocolate bourbon pecan, pecan and pumpkin pies as well as white chocolate pumpkin cheesecake and apple sour cream to order until noon Monday prior to Thanksgiving. 

If you are looking to dine in, but not cook a thing, both the and have you covered. State Road’s menu includes an Island raised turkey from Cleveland Farm dressed and ready to serve. You can also get such sides as mashed sweet potatoes with caramelized apples, Brussel sprouts, green beans and Parker House rolls. Pies available will be apple cranberry, pumpkin, sweet potato and pecan. Turkey orders must be placed by Thursday the 17^th and all other orders by Sunday the 20^th. You can pick up your order on Thanksgiving day between 8 am – 11 am when they will also be serving breakfast.

At the Bakehouse, you can get the standard Thanksgiving fare or opt for an entrée of Quinoa Pilaf w/ fall-roasted veggies. They will have vegetarian stuffing and linguica and corn stuffing as well as salads; two types of soup and of course an assortment of pies. The menu includes a number of sides, many of which are gluten-free sides. They also have gluten-free flourless chocolate cake and gluten-free pecan crusted pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving Dinner orders can be arranged for pick-up anytime during Thanksgiving week including Thanksgiving morning.  Dessert orders can be picked up anytime on Tuesday or Wednesday (November 22^nd or 23^rd) until 6:30pm. The Scottish Bakehouse will be open until 11am Thanksgiving Day.