| Good Saturday morning, everyone. I've been very busy this week, and that's because, at least according to our calendar at Post Food, it's Thanksgiving. Actually, it has been Thanksgiving here for a few months now, thanks to the long lead time we give ourselves to select, test, taste, tweak and edit the recipes. How far do you plan ahead? Have you started shopping? Do you know what you're making? If you're anything like a lot of us on the team, your family probably has at least a few recipes handed down over generations that must be on the table every year. That love of nostalgia is what inspired our new menu. "Vintage recipes possess a certain nostalgic beauty, be they tried-and-true family favorites or a time capsule of a bygone era," wrote assistant recipes editor Olga Massov, who spearheaded the herculean effort of pulling this holiday coverage together. We scoured recipes from roughly between the 1920s and 1970s (any older and they get too vague to follow), and merged them into a winning lineup that manages to walk the line between classic and contemporary, complete with a few tweaks to reflect more modern tastes and ingredients — and food safety. First up is the Roast Turkey With Apple Cider Glaze that employs Olga's preferred method for cooking a whole bird: blasting it in a very hot oven briefly, then letting it finish at a more moderate temperature. The super-concentrated cider glaze gets applied twice toward the end of cooking. You'll find similar autumnal flavors featured in the Sourdough Stuffing With Sausage and Raisins that Aaron Hutcherson tested. There's 3/4 cup of the (divisive but easy to substitute) dried fruit in the mix, accented with a restrained 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon — enough to make itself known but not so much to make the dish taste like dessert. Ditto the Candied Sweet Potatoes I worked on. They get a small hit of cinnamon, along with lemon juice, to infuse the dark caramel sauce that boasts the right amount of bitterness to keep everything from getting too sweet. If you need something else to cut through the richness of the Thanksgiving meal, don't miss the no-cook, four-ingredient Fresh Cranberry, Apple and Orange Relish that just requires a few pulses in the food processor. If you want something to boost the richness of the meal (ha), feast your eyes on Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes "Duchesse." We combined a more standard recipe that used the tangy cultured dairy with Julia Child's recipe for Pommes de Terre Duchesse for a truly remarkable presentation featuring a layer of golden cheese across the top and a pretty piped border. The spuds are just as good if you skip those flourishes, too. For our brand-new desserts, we asked recipe developer and blogger Sam Rehn to take the classics and run with them — namely in the direction of making them even more welcoming for even more guests. After years of fielding questions about how to modify holiday desserts to suit vegan and gluten-free diets, we're excited to offer you these recipes with those needs in mind. The Gluten-Free Brown Butter Pumpkin Pie is built on a press-in graham cracker and pecan crust that cradles an ultradense and creamy filling. It'll make you forget about any other watery, wan pumpkin pies you've had in the past. The cream cheese whipped cream topping is a game changer as well. Vegan Spiced Apple Crumble Pie swaps in nondairy butter but is an otherwise familiar, if elevated, take on the Thanksgiving staple. Rehn macerates the apples for a few hours, then cooks down the juices to form a caramel-like spiced sauce that coats the fruit. Last is the whimsical, wild card Orange Cranberry Meringue Pie, a riff on lemon meringue pie that layers a cranberry curd on a short crust pasty shell, all topped with a billowing cloud of cranberry-accented Italian meringue. None of these desserts eat like "less than" because of the modifications, and the beauty of them is that you can mix and match the elements based on whatever dietary needs you have (or don't). For more holiday inspiration, including a variety of meatless mains, check out our Thanksgiving menu planner that allows you to filter recipes by number of servings, course and dietary needs. Plus, you can save recipes and generate a handy shopping list. Of course, we had our usual weekly recipes to share, most of which hit that sweet spot of light and simple we're looking for in the run-up to Thanksgiving. My French Onion Chicken Noodle Soup combines two favorites into a pantry-friendly recipe that takes well to riffing. Ellie Krieger's Lentil and Vegetable Soup is a spot-on blend of mellow, sweet, earthy and tart flavors, with balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic as the MVPs. Aaron's Old-Fashioned Pork Chops add instant flair to a reliable weeknight protein, thanks to a sauce inspired by one of his favorite cocktails. Daniela Galarza merged two Thai recipes for the 30-minute Laab Moo (Pork Laab) that dresses crispy bits of ground meat with a savory, tangy, sweet and spicy sauce made with fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and fresh chile. What cooking questions do you have for Thanksgiving? Be sure to join our live weekly chat Wednesday at noon Eastern. Send in your questions now — about the holiday or anything else — and come back when we kick things off in real time. Until next time, happy cooking. | 
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