Thanksgiving

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.

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blmisc38.jpgThanksgiving in our house wasn't Thanksgiving without a stupid amount of chestnuts that needed to be roasted and peeled for stuffing. It was actually fun in a punishing sort of way. We were the house that hosted all the Thanksgiving orphans and to be able to eat on Thanksgiving you had to come over the night before and help roast and peel. Much hilarity ensued as everyone became convinced that their technique was the one way to peel the difficult buggers.

By the time the actual meal came around I was so full from tasting stuffing and eating the crumbled chestnuts that facing that groaning table made me want to groan.  So I had my own meal I created from the bigger meal around me.

Before we sat down to eat, while the adults were having a drink and cheese,  I became obsessed with my aunt's bowlfuls of Spanish peanuts, raisins and chocolate chips that were set throughout the living room.  Forget gorp or trail mix or even Chex mix. That combo was like eating the best cookie ever without the dough.

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Stuffing

by  Katherine Reback

nyc_1900.jpg My grandfather and several of my great uncles had a fur store in N.Y.  It was called Windsor Furs (to indicate, one can only guess, a regal presence previously unknown to 14th Street and 7th Avenue). Uncle Simon and Uncle Harry kept Windsor Furs well into their 90’s. And I would like to tell you all the funny, memorable stories I know about them and the shop.  But the thing that springs to mind at this moment is their business card. 

“Windsor Furs - Shop Here! Soon you will know the reason why.”

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Apple and Walnut Cornbread Stuffing

Aunt Lovey’s Turkey Stuffing Recipe

Bob Willett's Stuffing

Bruce Aidells' Cornbread Stuffing

Felicity's Oyster Stuffing

Lori's Thanksgiving Stuffing

Mama Montgomery's Rice Stuffing

Mom's French Meat Stuffing

Sausage, Dried Cranberry and Apple Stuffing

texting.jpg“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NO TURKEY???” I have never sent an angrier text in my life. Ping!

“We are having my famous Native American pumpkin chili,” Mother just texted back. “You liked it last year.”

No. I did not like it last year!   In fact, I did not like her famous Native American pumpkin chili soooo much last year that I had politely excused myself from the table, raced into the kitchen under the guise of needing a glass of water, and promptly shoveled the chili into the family dog’s bowl. If I recall correctly, even the family dog, who eats her own poop, wanted nothing to do with Mother’s famous Native American pumpkin chili. She wanted turkey.

“But it won’t be Thanksgiving w/o turkey!” I am texting back to my mom now with trembling hands.

Ping! Snotty response? “Check your history. Turkey has very little to do with the “First Thanksgiving.”

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turkey-hash-630x407-1Forget about Thanksgiving dinner. I can’t wait until the day after Thanksgiving for leftovers. When else during the year can you look forward to turkey soup, turkey chopped liver, smoked turkey sandwiches, and above all turkey hash in a single day? All this month, on www.barbecuebible.com, we’ve been telling you how to cook turkey on the grill. Make sure you manage to squirrel away a pound or so of the cooked turkey meat for hash.

Our word hash comes from the French verb hacher, "to chop." (Yeah, it’s the same etymological root as that chopping device favored by George Washington, the hatchet.) Hash originated as a way to use up leftovers, but it now turns up not just at hash houses (a nickname for diners) but at high-falutin’ restaurants from coast to coast.

The most common version of hash contains corned beef and potatoes, but you can make hash with an almost endless variety of ingredients. Rural New Englanders combined corned beef, potatoes, and beets to make red flannel hash. In seafaring communities it was common to find salt cod and fish hash. Hachis parmentier, garlicky chopped lamb and potatoes, is classic comfort food in France.

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