A holiday puzzle to stuff your book nerd brain

Thanksgiving week seems like the perfect moment for Foodie Fiction, so here’s how it works: I describe a lusciously vivid scene about food from a novel or a memoir and give you some clues about which author wrote that scene. Then you come up with the book and the writer and tweet it to me @KerriMPR.

OK, ready? This Thanksgiving dinner scene appears in a short story collection titled with the name of one of this author’s most beloved characters. It tells the tale of a rural New England family and a Thanksgiving Day that suddenly goes awry when the parents have to rush to the side of an ailing relative.
The kids, eight in all, decide Thanksgiving can be saved. All it will take is a few recipes and some ingenuity.

Here’s a description of the kitchen in which the dinner will be concocted: “The big kitchen was a jolly place for now, for in the great fireplace roared a cheerful fire; on the walls hung garlands of dried apples, onions and corn; up a loft from the beams shone crook-necked squashes, juicy hams and dried venison….”

“Savory smells were in the air; on the crane hung steaming kettles; and down among the red embers copper saucepans simmered, all suggestive of some approaching feast.”

I don’t have to remind you that there would be no story to tell if all went well. Let’s just say essential ingredients are left out. “It just doesn’t smell right,” one kid says to her siblings as she makes the stuffing for the turkey. "But I suppose it will when it is cooked.” A wild animal circles the farmstead and the meal verges on disaster.

Figured it out yet? Here are a couple more clues about this author: She wrote her most famous novel to help her father, who also wanted to be an author. The publisher promised if she produced a book, he’d also publish her father’s manuscript.

And while this author never had children of her own, she is still read and cherished by young readers worldwide.

Think you know the name of this author and the book in which this Thanksgiving story appears? Head to Twitter and tweet me @KerriMPR.