Chestnuts

I will be making a cornbread and cranberry dressing for Thanksgiving dinner. Its a delicious Williams-Sonoma recipe with chestnuts.

Last year I bought fresh ones and roasted them. MMMM, they totally remind me of my mom. She loved to boil them. If you've never had them, they have a consistency of a cooked potato (a little harder) and they are mild and sweet.

Anyway, my recipe calls for a jar of French chestnuts. Huh? Well, okay. So I headed to the hoity toity Harris Teeter. So I ask the lady at the customer service desk. She kindly brought be over to the canned WATER chestnuts.

Ah, nice. No, we are not making chicken chow mein, sista.

Well, turns out they didn't have the ones in a jar because they were "seasonal" and don't stock them until closer to Christmas. Huh? Isn't Thanksgiving pretty seasonal? So the guy helping me says I should just use fresh ones. Then I say, but it says "French" chestnuts. Does that make a difference? He says, no because all chestnuts are of French origin. Oh, okay. So I head over to the produce isle to get the fresh chestnuts. They have Italian chestnuts. Are you kidding?