Thanksgiving would not seem right, of course, without stuffed turkey, cranberry sauce, a large variety of vegetable dishes and more than one dessert - including the obligatory pumpkin pie. All the essentials for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner are here. But there also are suggestions for unusual ways to prepare some time-honored ingredients.

Cranberry sauce, for example, is only one of the delicious things that can be made from these tart native American berries; they can also be candied, cooked in muffins, made into a chiffon pie or transformed into a rosy water ice.  Sweet potatoes, combined with eggs and corn syrup, make a perfect pie filling, while pumpkins can be baked into a rich bread or simmered with onions and chicken stock to make an unusual hot or cold soup.

Thanksgiving is also a harvest festival, and the seasonal profusion of nuts is celebrated here, covering every course of the meal. A first course of peanut soup might be followed by turkey filled with sausage, cornbread and pecan stuffing, and accompanied by braised celery and almonds. To assuage any lingering pangs of hunger after a helping of maple-walnut or pecan pie, the family can nibble on toasted, candied or sherried nuts as they linger over a comfortable after-dinner drink.