Sophisticated Cranberry Sauce For When You Are Intimidated By Your Guests

Dear Reader,

Thanksgiving can be fraught will all manner of insecurities, particularly if you are entertaining guests who scare the shit out of you.  Maybe you married for money and your new wealthy relatives are coming over, or your new boyfriend has much cooler friends than you are accustomed to, or you somehow managed to find a boyfriend or girlfriend at all, after many years of Hungry Man Turkey Dinners for one.  Whatever the case, you can NOT serve a gloppy can of cranberry sauce to these people.  I can help.

Sophisticated Cranberry Sauce For When You Are Intimidated By Your Guests

You will need:

Balsamic vinegar

Garlic

Dried cherries

Dried cranberries

Ella Fitzgerald CD

Artisanal Small Batch Wine

With the turkey in the oven, pour a quantity of vinegar into a sauce pan.  Add two cloves of whole, peeled garlic.  Put on Ella Fizgerald CD, as though some people might not love Ella Fitzgerald, nobody can argue that she is not worth listening to, and the choice of this sort of music says that you are familiar with music outside of the Nickleback and Rascal Flatts which take up most of the space on your iPod, and that you can appreciate arty things.  Toss in a handful of dried cherries and dried cranberries to the vinegar, and simmer.  Pour glass of small batch wine.  Purchasing this sort of wine eliminates the odds that you will buy a wine that is considered gauche or declasse, and if your guests have never heard of it, chances are they won't know it cost only $9.99.  Reduce the vinegar being careful not to stick your face directly over the saucepan as the fumes from the simmering vinegar will cause your throat to close up and your eyes to water.  Remove garlic.  When serving guests, the sauce may be smeared artistically beneath the turkey, dotted around the edge of the plate, or drizzled over the turkey, the choice is yours.  Just make sure you have a can of cranberry sauce on hand, because everybody likes that.