Thanksgiving, family-style and Top-chef style

(We've been on vacation for two weeks--more later--so here's the first installation of our catch-up)

This is the biggest family-and-food day of the American year, and we are fortunate to have an abundance of both, not to mention great cooks to produce said food.
Of course, the centerpiece is turkey: David lovingly injected two big birds with flavored butter and then deep-fried them using his special deep-fryer, which stands a nice long way from the house. This prevents fires, while any oil overflow - there will be lots - goes into a part of the grass you don't want to mow anyway. The turkey cooks in an amazingly short time, and is moist and tender with nice crispy skin.
JoDee first made her own classic southwestern cornbread, and then made that into two separate dressings, both sacred to Parker family traditions: sausage and oyster. These were true dressings, as they didn't get stuffed into anything - just you try deep-frying a stuffed turkey.
Joanna made mashed potatoes, rich with cream and butter.
Holt and I only had a little of our cranberry chutney to bring with us, so we made two pounds of cranberry-clementine sauce. Just those two ingredients ground up with lots of sugar, either raw or cooked - we did cooked.
Becky was the Pie Queen, providing pumpkin, pecan, and apple-pumpkin pies (the last surprisingly appley). Any cream left over from other uses got whipped to adorn these beauties.
Jo Linn made her famous buttermilk fudge, which is based on Uncle Plem's secret family recipe. Actually, it's not so secret, as he's given it out to all of us, but only Jo Linn has really gotten it right.
Oh, and there were fresh rolls and steamed broccoli, but who cares? A green vegetable is almost immaterial on the Thanksgiving table.

In the evening, after the statutory football games, we watched the Top Chef Thanksgiving Challenge on the Food Network. Several aspiring chefs were each ordered to produce one course of a "cutting-edge" Thanksgiving dinner, and after the usual competitiveness, bitching and crises, they produced a fairly lousy and uncoordinated (duh!) menu to be sneered at by Anthony Bourdain.
Since then, Holt and I have been putting our thoughts together on what we would have chosen to serve for this challenge. Given that we were in co-operation rather than competition, our job was much easier, and we were able to match and contrast flavors, textures, temperatures, and even states of the union. Not to mention that we didn't actually have to cook anything.
So, here's BARBARA AND HOLT'S CUTTING-EDGE THANKSGIVING DINNER.
Pumpkin bisque garnished with Maryland blue crabmeat;
Turkey breast California rolls with avocado, served with cranberry gelée, ginger relish, and wasabi mayonnaise;
Turkey-leg confit with caramelized onions under a cloud of Idaho potatoes (gassed through an iSi thermo-whip, for that El Bulli touch);
Butternut squash flan with candied pecans and crème fraiche.
Take that, Top Chef.