Thanksgiving

turkey.jpgAh, so it begins. 

From my cousin:
“Well, so far, there will be about thirty of us.  We should talk about the menu and see what we want everyone to bring. We’ll need two turkeys. Kevin says he wants to deep fry one.”

This, from my cousin Leland in Kansas where we will meet for Thanksgiving.  I will happily fly to Tulsa from Los Angeles, then drive on cruise control 120 miles to the small town of Parsons for Thanksgiving dinner at his big blue Victorian home with a host of cousins, grandchildren, stray local teen-agers and two uncles well into their 80s. (One will bring a cream pie and the other, green jello.) 

Once we settle where the out-of-towners sleep we will find ourselves smack in this small town of 13,000 in the middle of the country, the grocery shopping dependent on a Wal Mart just outside the city limits where there is never a shortage of iceberg lettuce, year round.  (A side note: I felt slapped down, yet hopeful to discover a small plastic container of basil buried among the radishes when last there.) 

Read more ...

funny-thanksgiving-clipart-4.jpg10. Brine the bird. It’s easy to do and can metamorphose your turkey from tasteless and dry to juicy and scrumptious.  For an 18-20 pound bird, line very large (about 16-quart) bowl with two 30-gallon plastic bags, one inside the other. Rinse turkey inside and out. Place turkey in plastic-lined bowl. Combine 7 quarts water, 2 cups coarse salt, 1 cup packed brown sugar, 1 cup mild molasses, 1 bunch thyme, and 1/2 bunch sage in large bowl or pot. Stir until salt and sugar dissolve. Mix in ice cubes. Pour brine over turkey in plastic bags. Gather tops of bags together, eliminating air space above brine; seal bags. Refrigerate turkey in brine 18 to 20 hours. But WAIT! Whatever you do, don’t brine a Kosher bird for he has already been brined and will become too salty if you do it again.

9. If your husband, father, brother, uncle or neighbor wants to fry the turkey, let him. Nothing makes a man happier than to wrestle a turkey into submission via hot oil. I couldn’t care less if the bird was fried or roasted as long as the turkey tastes good and stays moist. If it keeps them out of the kitchen for a while, they should absolutely be encouraged to fry, fry, fry.

Read more ...

turkeyLast month I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner and a Christmas dinner. The only thing missing was a crowd around the table. Why the feast? I was developing recipes for Roast Turkey, Brown Sugar and Mustard Baked Ham, Maple Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Lightened Green Bean Casserole, a Holiday Salad (with pomegranate seeds and pepitas) and Harvest Apple Stuffing. I also created some recipes using leftover ham and turkey and for a few fun things you can make for the holidays to give as gifts like Peppermint Bark and Chocolate Chip Cookies in a Jar. The recipes were for Grocery Outlet and will be featured in a brochure for customers. 

Having never hosted my own holiday dinners for 10+ people, I learned a lot! I shopped for as much of the dishes as possible at Grocery Outlet, after doing my planning and creating shopping lists. Of course making lists of what you need to buy is important, but being open to swapping out ingredients if you find something delicious and on sale is a good idea too. I was planning to use dried cranberries in the salad but found pomegranates were a better choice at the time. 

When it comes to holiday meals, the main thing is to have an enjoyable time with your family and guests. If that means buying a pie instead of baking one, so be it! Concentrate on putting your energy into the things that matter most to you don't make yourself crazy trying to do everything. Most importantly? Have fun!

Read more ...

roastturkey.jpgRoast Turkey

After more than 20 years of writing Thanksgiving turkey recipes, I thought I had seen it all. And then came the "Judy Bird."

Inspired by the chicken-cooking technique of my friend Judy Rodgers, chef and owner at San Francisco's Zuni Cafe, it couldn't be simpler: You just salt the turkey a few days in advance, give it a brisk massage every so often to redistribute the salt, and then roast it.

The results are phenomenal. Without the fuss and mess of wet-brining, you still get the deep, well-seasoned flavor. And while wet-brining can sometimes lead to a slightly spongy texture, with dry-brining, the bird stays firm and meaty.

It has become a holiday staple for many of our readers, so we're reprising it again this year.

Read article...

Image“It feels like we are in a movie,” said Alessandro across the living room as he stabbed his fork into a giant piece of turkey. “We see this in the movies, but we never experience it. This is my first Thanksgiving.”

Alessandro is an Italian man that one of our classmates, in Italy, took time to make friends with over the last three weeks. He is sitting across the room from me. To my left, a woman from Israel is laughing. Next to her is an Englishman, and another Italian. Just past a light shade, that obstructs my view, is a German. If you take another look around our room, you might not only notice the foreign differences but also the age differences as well. A retired woman, born in America, who grew up in Canada, is sitting three spaces to my left while others in the room have just nearly hit 23. You might think we are sitting in a support group for diversity, but this is far from what is happening. This is our Thanksgiving—ten Americans, and five, eventually six people who have never celebrated the giant turkey in the middle of the table, the green bean casserole, or cranberry sauce (which go for 3.90 Euro each at the International Ingredient store) before.

Read more ...