Plop! It slops out of the can like Jell-O or canned dog food and holds its corrugated, cylindrical shape in the bowl.   You have to mash it down with a spoon to tame it and make it appear appetizing.   Soon your family will be gathered around a table, spooning dollops of the maroon substance onto steaming white meat.   We are all familiar with the canned cranberry sauce that accompanies thanksgiving dinner.   It’s a once-a-year kinda thing.

A few years back, I boasted to a friend that my family makes its own cranberry sauce and asked if she had ever had the condiment not from the canned-food aisle.   She responded no and seemed skeptical, yet intrigued.   So we cooked up a batch.   Even before it cooled, she was eating it by the spoonful.

Don’t believe me? Try it yourself this Thanksgiving.   Make extra though, because you’re going to want to have this stuff around to slather onto turkey sandwiches for the next couple of weeks.   Although, if you’re anything like me, the turkey is really just an excuse to load up on cranberry sauce.

Thanksgiving Cranberry Sauce
Adapted from Craig Claiborne’s “New York Times Cook Book”

1 pound cranberries, picked over and washed
2 cups sugar
½ cup water
3 teaspoon grated orange rind
½ cup orange juice
½ cup blanched almonds, slivered (optional)

Combine all the ingredients (except the almonds if you’re going to add them) in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and cook over medium-high, stirring regularly, until the substance boils for a while and the cranberries pop open, about 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and skim the foam from the surface.   Let the sauce cool and thicken, adding almonds if you wish.

Store cranberry sauce in the refrigerator, where it will keep for weeks.