Susan's Papa's Stuffing

I asked Papa for his Thanksgiving stuffing recipe, and he told me that he uses the one from the Fanny Farmer cookbook.  When looked for it, I found a recipe for sausage stuffing with no sage and no celery, and recipe for sage stuffing with celery and no sausage.  So I threw together everything from both recipes and called it a night.  When I checked with Papa later, he said something along the lines of "Oh yeah, now that you mention it, I think that's what I do too."

The classic sausage to use is Greg's Famous from Ver Brugge, but things labeled "country sausage" or "breakfast sausage" will be pretty close.  For bread, I recommend letting a good batard go about one day stale and then peeling the crust off and cutting it into cubes a little over a centimeter a side.  But I've also done it with a fresh loaf of Safeway Select French bread and it was almost as good.

2 tbsp butter
1 onion
3 ribs celery
1 lb sausage
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
4 tbsp sage, finely chopped
8 cups bread cubes

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the onion and celery, and sauté until the onion is soft.  The celery will still be pretty crunchy.  (I usually chop up the herbs while I wait, popping back to the stove to stir every couple minutes.)  Add the sausage and cook, stirring occasionally until the sausage is done.  Add the sage and parsley and stir to combine.

If the bread cubes fit in your skillet, you can add them, stir to get them coated with buttery-sausagey goodness, and either serve it or... stuff it into something?  The bread cubes do not fit into my skillet.  So I dump the whole mess into my largest mixing bowl, pop on the lid (my largest mixing bowl has a lid) and shake it like crazy for about ten seconds.  Same effect, more fun.