A New Kind of Thanksgiving

A couple of weeks before the Thanksgiving, a story in the NY Times Dining section sparked an idea and a few days later, I ordered a nine pound smoked turkey from Greenberg Smoked Turkeys of Tyler, Texas. (Go on and click that link - if only for the sound effects.)
Because this is such an unusual Thanksgiving idea for our family, I decided to blog the experience.

Here is the menu I came up with (it's something like a Thanksgiving Picnic with sidedishes that can be made or prepped in advance):

• Smoked Turkey
• Mom's Potato Salad
• Green Bean Casserole (loosely based on Cook's Illustrated's lighter recipe and a nod to the American Classics recipe)
• Stuffed Squash (ala Dorie Greenspan's Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good or here on Evan Kleiman's Sidedish podcast. This is similar to Ruth Reichl's stuffed pumpkin in Gourmet Today, which I made (and ate completely) last fall.)
• Homemade Crescent Rolls 
• Pumkin Pie
• Cranberry Upside Down Cake (Smitten Kitchen)
• John Sedlar's Pumpkin Infused Mezcal