THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING is not the time to post a new recipe. You either already know what you’re preparing or someone is cooking for you. Either way, we don’t need to give you a reason to run out shopping for more ingredients. We spotted this window the other night, wandering around downtown Chicago with our older daughter, who was in town for a brief visit. While it looks like a mysterious popup restaurant, it is actually part of a now vacant Walgreens. But it does describe how we’ll be celebrating the holiday and the weekend with our younger daughter and her boyfriend, and Marion’s sister. Even if it’s not the usual big, boisterous tableful of everyone at once, we’re thankful to be able to get together with family in batches.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We hope food + drinks with those you love is part of your plan too.

BLUE KITCHEN TURNED 15 LAST WEEKEND. Yep, we first posted on November 6, 2006. Not sure what the traditional gift for the 15th anniversary is, but we’re giving ourselves the week off. We’ll be back next week with a new recipe (we’re pretty sure). Oh, and the New Perfection above? It’s the kerosene cook stove on the Logsdon Sand and Gravel Co. towboat we saw at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa, a few weeks ago. The stern wheeler towboat was built in 1940. The stove is probably the same vintage—they were made from 1907 up to the 1950s. Who knows how many meals it must have cooked for the crew that took this boat up and down the Mississippi.

Seeing stuff like this is just one of the things that keeps us interested in food—making it, eating it, thinking and talking about it. And writing about it here, even after 15 years. See you next week.

WE ARE ON (AND OFF) THE ROAD RIGHT NOW. We took a week off for not exactly a long road trip, not exactly a staycation. More kind of a nearcation—a series of little adventures in a three-state radius. Visiting a daughter, seeing some museums, riding the world’s steepest funicular (the Fenelon Place Elevator in Dubuque, Iowa). And doing a little antiquing. We saw this kitchen string dispenser in Dyersville, Iowa. My grandmother had one of these on her kitchen wall; if she’d ever kept string in her chef, it was before I met him.

And while we cooked and photographed two dishes that will appear here shortly, we just didn’t have the bandwidth to write about them. Please stop by next week for a recipe. And maybe a story or two from downstate Illinois.