As has become our tradition, we're going camping out at the coast for Thanksgiving. We used to have the beach all to ourselves from Wednesday through Friday morning, and we would leave just as the crowds were starting to arrive. Unfortunately, with the economic downturn, lots of other people have discovered Thanksgiving camping, and the crowds have gotten worse.

After all of the different types and brands of turkey varieties that I have tried - natural, organic, vegetarian feed, pastured, heritage, heirloom and wild. I realized that I have never had a kosher bird. So this year I decided to order one and see how it compares with the others that I have had.

So far I like wild turkeys the best but unless you hunt or have hunter friends you will not get one. After wild turkeys the pastured raised birds have had the best flavour followed by some of the heritage/heirloom brands.

Once nice thing with the kosher bird is that it will not have to be brined.

I did it again. I waited too long to put in an order with one of the local heritage turkey farms. Even though more farms are raising more turkey this year than they have in the last half century, demand as far outstripped supply.

This time, I'm putting my name in right now for next year's bird.

We like to expand out our Thanksgiving preparation to three, or sometimes even four, days.

Ever since Laurie and I got together, Thanksgiving is our holiday. Our parents can lay claim to Easter and Christmas, but Thanksgiving is for us. The tradition is to either go backpacking or car camping out to the coast, which makes it hard to get very fancy with the cooking, so we cook everything ahead of time and heat it up in a skillet when we get there.