It's nearly that time of year again. The family gathers, sounds of football playing in the background. The table is set. It groans with food: the massive brown bird, the hot stuffing, rich with gravy. Potatoes, sweet and mashed. Pies, at least pumpkin, or sweet potato; sometimes apple and more.

WHAT'S MISSING FROM THIS PICTURE?

It's cheese.

This is odd, because according to the Plymouth Plantation museum, as early as 1627 the Plymouth colony had quite a dairy herd:

"[F]our cows, seven heifers and... at least two dozen goats... Milk was not considered very good to drink either. It was usually made into butter or cheese."

Cheese was a staple of the early settlers, and deserves a place on the Thanksgiving table. And yet, the usual T-Day offerings are conspicuously cheese-free. So we're getting together with the great American goat cheese makers at Laura Chenel's Chèvre and asking you to correct this glaring oversight. Send us a Thanksgiving recipe made with any variety of Laura Chenel's Chèvre, and you can win a basket of their delectable goaty goodies to stuff your cornucopia.

The Nitty Gritty

• We're accepting original recipes in three categories: appetizer, side-dish, or dessert.*
• You have until October 28 to submit recipes. We'll select the top six, and pass them on to the in-house chefs at Laura Chenel's Chèvre for final judgement.
• Winning recipes will be selected by November 15, posted on the culture and Laura Chenel's websites and printed in a future issue of culture.

We're looking for tasty, original recipes made with any variety of Laura Chenel's Chèvre—their Fresh Chèvre Log, Chabis, and Chef’s Chèvre are widely available, but any of their offerings are fair game. Instructions and measures should be easy and accurate (they've got to work the first time) and it all has to look great next to the turkey.

Send your recipe and a photograph of your dish to thanksgiving@culturecheesemag.com along with your name and phone number so we can get in touch.

You can download the complete rules here.

So fire up the oven, grab some goat cheese, and get cookin'!

* While we applaud anyone willing to mold a full-size goat-cheesefurky, or debone and stuff a turchèvreducken, we're disallowing main dishes to spare the test kitchen the strain. Special note to Italian-Americans: for the purposes of the contest, lasagna is considered a side-dish, though we know its true place is in the center of the Thanksgiving table.