Swiss chard greens are a good addition to wedding soup. Click photo for larger image.

About 15 years ago, my sister Angel and I decided we needed a holiday we could call our own. Coming from a large Italian family, we knew our mom, Ann, would have trouble giving up control of a family holiday. But she finally relented and gave us the grandest holiday of them all -- Thanksgiving.

Every year since, we would find ourselves working furiously in the days before the big event preparing the dinner. Angel, the cook in the house, enjoys this. She likes the idea of cooking huge meals for 12 people. I don't. She is the creative cook. I follow recipes.

This year, we got smart. With the proliferation of organic farms and farmers' markets locally, we started preparing for the holiday at the beginning of the growing season. Each week as seasonal crops became available, we cooked, canned and froze so that come Thanksgiving we could enjoy the company.

Here's a look at our countdown to Thanksgiving:

May -- The strawberries were plentiful and beautiful this year. We turned the very berry month of May into a jam fest, cooking the fruit with a little pectin and sugar. We will serve this with Mother Ann's homemade buns.

June -- While most people think Thanksgiving is just turkey, we are Italian; we need to add wedding soup and a pasta to the meal. In June, we washed, boiled and froze bags of Swiss chard for the greens (not the stems because they do not hold up well). These will be defrosted the day before Thanksgiving so that we have fresh greens in the soup. Angel will also saute some with garlic and olive oil as a side dish.

One of the best summer treats this year were the beets. I just boiled them and froze them. Come Thanksgiving Day, I will simply defrost and heat them. Beets are the one vegetable everyone at our table will eat with no embellishments.

July -- I love zucchini, but it seemed to me 2005 was the year of the endless zucchini. Zucchini bread, zucchini muffins, sauteed zucchini, boiled zucchini. By the end of July, I did not want to see another zucchini -- until Thanksgiving. This year we decided to make a variation of our lasagna and add zucchini. Again we froze the entree. (As an FYI, the secret to Mother Ann's lasagna is to add a teaspoon of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon to the ricotta.)

August -- It would not be fair with our ethnic background not to mention tomatoes (even though they play only a small role in the Thanksgiving dinner.) Our sister Maria decided she was tired of vegetable gardening and was not planting any this year -- until brother Dan showed up one evening with 45 plants and written instructions on how he wanted his babies planted. By August, Mother Ann had canned 45 quarts of tomatoes for year-round sauce.

September -- Thanksgiving is all about choices, particularly when it comes to dessert. I love making homemade applesauce and apple pie. Sometimes I add a pear to the applesauce for variety. I use a sweet apple such as 'Golden Delicious,' which negates the need for sugar in the recipe. After cooking, the applesauce goes in canning jars for storage in a cool dry pantry. For the pie, I will use a 'Granny Smith,' which adds a tartness to the dessert.

October -- The queen of the holiday dinner is definitely the pumpkin pie. There is nothing better than the fresh meat of the pumpkin boiled down and doctored with spices. Thanksgiving itself can be summed up with a whiff of allspice.

November -- After working so hard all season, the holiday has finally arrived. As we sit down to dinner, everyone must write down what they are thankful for. Some are thankful for Angel, who prepared such a beautiful turkey. Some are thankful for the family and friends we have to share the holiday with.

Me? I'm thankful I finally got smart and prepared in advance. For Thanksgiving Day, all I have to do is defrost everything, set the table, bake the yams, assemble the wedding soup and pour the wine.