I dislike most Thanksgiving food, although I do like pumpkin pie. It's not one of my favorite holidays.
1: Thundersnow made a pumpkin pie tonight, along with a mini version in a ramekin, so we could sample the pie before Thanksgiving. It was the bomb.
It's my very favorite holiday: football and gluttony! Plus, I was born on Thanksgiving.
On the one hand, Thanksgiving is about eating and watching football. But on the other hand, it's specifically about eating turkey and watching the Cowboys. Ugh.
You know what I like about Thanksgiving, motherfuckers I work with generally aren't reading and writing fucking e-mail and shit for at least a day. Except for those freaking foreigners. Get a holiday, losers.
Mince-meat pie. Root vegetables. STUFFINGS!
The best thanksgiving food is the day-after Thanksgiving sandwich, which contains mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and turkey. Since I am a vegetarian, I usually have to construct it without the benefit of leftovers, but I still put a seasonal restriction on it. Capriotti's actually has the veggie turkey, but their stuffing is chicken-brothy.
In the non-hypothetical, I am looking forward to whatever desserts my sister is going to enlist me in making. I am her henchman. They will be good.
Anyway, what I do like about Thanksgiving this year specifically is that although the day after is not technically a federal holiday, basically all federal employees who can take it off do, so they told me today that I can also have it off. Plus the director of the National Park Service sent out an e-mail saying everyone can leave two hours early tomorrow. Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.
I want my Thanksgiving back. At least this year I took the weak northern version as an occasion to go visit my family.
What work are you getting done up in the dark there anyway?
Also, I have class from 6 to 9 on Thursday.
10 -> 8, but I guess it can sort of kinda work for 9.
I want stuffing. The good kind with little bits of turkey organs in it.
The good kind with little bits of turkey organs cat organs in it.
FTFY.
Pumpkin pie, which is why I'm currently waiting up for my roasted pumpkin to cool down so I can puree it. That's definitely the big one. Cranberry relish, as distinct from sauce - berries, sugar, and orange, in a food processor. Everything else is just part of a larger familiar picture, but those two are not optional.
(Current menu includes a roast turkey breast, a chicken- and beef-broth-based gravy, some bread-based stuffing made with turkey wings cooking on top of it, roasted brussels sprouts, baked acorn squash, and some dinner rolls)
I'm now having beer with chocolate chip cookies, so my holiday is already going.
I prefer sweet potato pie to pumpkin pie, but I've been told that is both déclassé and neglectful of tradition.
No one should insult another person's pie.
Pumpkin pie for Friday breakfast!
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.
a chicken- and beef-broth-based gravy
Your two days of cooking don't include making turkey stock?
I will be dining with the ex side of the family, in the interest of my son, but I am not in my formerly traditional position of host/chef/impresario, so I will only be able to vouch for the wine and the mashed potatoes.
20.--Both sides of the aisle have grounds for complaint.
Only one doesn't bear the actual name of the party, though.
We need a third party pie of radical centrist ingredients. Where's fafblog when you need him?
Stuffing. Pumpkin Cheesecake. Sweet potato casserole. Garlic mashed potatos.
And that left-overs sandwich that was mentioned above.
What kind of self-respecting nation has Thanksgiving in fucking November? It's probably full of the kind of sons-(and-daughters-)of-bitches(-and-bastards) who refuse to recognize the significance of Fertile Crescent cimatic complexity as it pertains to the overarching themes of Guns, Germs & Steel. Fuckers.
(Comment 29 brought to you from the Department of Self-Mockery over Ridiculous Behaviour in a Previous Thread. You know the one.)
But, seriously. Those of us who celebrate Thanksgiving at the correct time tend to prefer Cornish Hen or Jerk Lamb as alternatives to the dreary inevitably of turkey. And of course, pumpking pie is the Shizznit.
(Pumpking pie, I says. For it is the sovereign of pies.)
But what are you jonesin' for?
The twenty percent discount on the night at the local English bookstore.
"Green bean casserole."
Grrrrrrrrrrr.
I love our family recipe for stuffing.
I love Thanksgiving, because I get to wallow in my Pilgrim roots and because you don't have to buy gifts.
This year I was bummed, because all of my various options fell through including a potential trip to New York. (Then there's my Republican uncle in PDBS who used to have us over for Christmas Eve. One year his girlfriend said that my sister and I could come for Christmas Day as well. There was some kind of poor communication, because he asked us what we were planning on doing the next day, and when we said that we thought we were going to his place, he said that there really wasn't any room.)
I did not want to cook up one of those pre-stuffed turkey breasts, so at the last minute we got a reservation. We missed the 2:45PM one by minutes, so now we won't be eating until 7:45, and I have to work the next day.
I still wish that I were getting together with a whole pile of friends though.
6: I always thought of mince meat pie as Christmas food.
We never had potatoes at Thanksgiving, since the Pilgrims did not eat them.
30: My Cnadian potential future-in-laws have turkey at Christmas--not a very good oneat that. I prefer to mix it up and have roast beef on Christmas.
33: you know, you can blanch tiny green beans, make real bechamel sauce, and deep-fry shallots or get the kind from the thai grocery. I know, you're thinking, "why?" because you can.
I'm looking forward to the creamed pearl onions, by long-standing tradition lovingly prepared, placed in the microwave to get them out of the way until everything else is ready, and then forgotten until the next day when they're discovered and thrown out. Wouldn't be Thanksgiving without them.
This evening is sponsored by pie -- pumpkin, apple, and pecan. I have a lot of trouble with pie crust, so I'll be cursing continuously from when I get home from work until midnight.
re: pie crust, and if you just take a few scraps and cut leaves out of them and put them on the top with some little balls of crust, everyone will be so overcome they will not notice the patches.
Oh, I do things like that. I just don't have a good hand for pastry -- I have a choice between too weak and crumbly to work with, and leathery. Usually I try and err on the side of weak and crumbly because if you can get the pie assembled it tastes better, but it makes assembling the pies a bitch.
sweet potato pie is delicious! so much so that my family in the south eats "sweet potato pone," which, word to the wise, is just pie filling baked in a square casserole dish and stipulated to be a vegetable. the local pumpkins in narnia are very dense and sweet and make a great pie. if I also make mashed pumpkin with coconut milk and lime zest will it be too much? I should skip it in favor of roasted daikon radish. I'm trying to make some lighter, vegetable-y things to go with the turkey (cooked over indirect heat with real hardwood charcoal) dressing (cornbread based with tradition hard-boiled egg decoration), mashed potatoes and gravy, and cranberry/orange relish. plus apple, pecan and pumpkin. but we are celebrating on friday to make life easier. it will still be thanksgiving in america for part of the time...I am trying to not overdo it so I'm only having 12 grown-ups and 6 kids? last year was 22 adults, so...BUT WHAT KIND OF PLACE CARDS??!1 [breathes into paper bag]
40: so true. erring on the side of crumbly is tastier but a pain in the ass.
BUT WHAT KIND OF PLACE CARDS??!1 [breathes into paper bag]
Daughter X is artsy, right? Delegate, man. Delegate.
sweet potato pie is delicious!
Sometimes I think we were meant to be roommates.
41: That's called sweet potato spoonbread in my family, also a big favorite.
How do you roast your daikon? I made daikon pancakes last time I had some and it was not as great as it could have been, but I think that was all my fault.
I have pulled something essential in my shoulder, painfully. If I had ever helped with the Thanksgiving cooking,* this would be an excellent excuse to stop.
* A slight exaggeration. Sometimes I have been given a simple task like stirring.
How do you roast your daikon?
Oh, come on.
I cut them up and put salt and pepper and a little oil on them and just roast them like potatoes, and add some maple syrup and sesame oil at the end. they get brown eventually, they're just waterier than potatoes. here in narnia we have "carrot cake." which is not at all like american carrot cake but a kind of egg scramble thing with daikon strips inside that seem like noodles. comes in regular and black. both are delicious.
apo, the real reason you and I are meant to be is that I am really good at sexing plants.
Who wants to sex Mutombo my Tijuana?
oh, man, I want to make biscuits and those fantail dinner rolls with the layers of butter between the yeast dough but...I'm supposed to keep it simple.
it's important to keep in mind that I have a whole person at my house whose job is is to do things such as "please chop all this celery" or "entertain these children so I can get something done." so I'm not as domestic goddess-y as all that.
47, 48: Sorry, I figured she'd have some trick I'd never have thought of, like adding maple syrup at the end. That carrot cake is much like the daikon pancakes I made and devoured.
I love almost everything about Thanksgiving. We have had some jostling over the location for dinner in the last several years due to the take-over by the Russians. (ok, ok, Ukranians.)
But, I've pulled the kid card and we have had dinner at our house for whomever wants to come. At some point during the day/evening, all the important people slink over to our house. (It might be bc they are jonesing for my sister's chocolate pecan pie from my grandmother's recipe.)
I love everything sweet potato so I am mostly anticipating various sweet potato dishes. But, I do enjoy my mom's green bean casserole.
I love everything sweet potato
So you (VA), me (NC), and alameida (SC). Interesting.
52: I thought family blogging was what drove people off in droves! Trying to do my part to be subversive or some shit.
I like all the stuff, especially pies. This year, though, it'll just be turkey, undressed and unadorned. We're guests of a group of friends, and I don't expect much in the way of low carb fare. I'll probably eat a bacon wrapped bison steak for brunch, just to get through the day.
(52: I honestly didn't know whether that was a joke or you thought I was just a huge idiot. My assumption tended harder toward the latter, but it's that kind of day.)
Our main meal will be at night, but I will probably start snacking on our two stuffings at lunch time. We have a fig one and an apple/sausage one. Yum.
I always get all this credit because people are amazed by my roasted brussel sprouts. I mean, cmon, yes they are delicious, but I don't know of there is an easier cooked food to cook.
I do sometime save the gravy too.
59:
We have a ton of them to make too! How are you making yours?
We are trying some pine nut and pomagrante molasses recipe.
This is my favorite way to cook fresh brussels sprouts.
My MIL has insisted on cooking turkey breast, thereby combining two things I hate, my MIL's cooking and turkey breast. She probably decided to take over the main part of the meal because in previous years I've made things outside of her comfort zone such as "food that has moisture left in it." I should come up with some elaborate dessert or something so I still have an excuse to hang out in the kitchen and drink.
Salt, olive oil, sprouts and time in the oven. No blanching, no nothing. Others have suggested innovations such as garlic and shallots, and while those, especially roasted, are also awesome, my recipe turns out the greatest food ever so I allow no modifications.
62: It's better than your MIL dessicating a food you actually like.
Is it wrong that for food and map making I'm a minimalist, but for architecture and city planning I want everything to be baroque?
62: Jesus is correct that the best part of Tgiving is hanging out in the kitchen and drinking. That is also usually where the extra good wine gets drunk, because my brother decides that the other brother's girlfriend's family doesn't deserve it and we drink all the growers champagnes or whatever while picking at everything while it cooks.
Also, I would like to be fed mashed potatoes in the manner that foie gras ducks are fed whatever hellish mash it is that they are fed.
Jesus, your MIL must be my mother. She is terrified of undercooked meat. No moisture is allowed!
My now-traditional (3rd year in a row, I think) sweet potatoes: Roast, mash, stir in brown butter. So damn good.
I have only in recent years discovered the magic of brown butter. Why was everyone conspiring to keep it from me?
65: I am cringing in anticipation of Stanley's inevitable pun on "baroque."
oudemia raises an important issue: how to allocate the good wine.
I'm thinking of taking side dishes including nattō and raw oysters, but that might come across as passive-aggressive. At least I'd have something to eat, though.
66: I was asked to include pinot grigio in my wine order. Which is fine, because more Savennières and Cote de Brouilly for me.
72: I'm going to your house. As long as you don't put any bacon in the mashed potatoes or something, I'm good. (One year, my normally very helpful brother decided all vegetables needed to be cooked in duck fat and that Everything Was Ruined if that couldn't happen.)
Oh good, now we can talk about wine selection. Any recommendations for wine with an all-veggie Thanksgiving meal (probably sweet potatoes, swiss chard, some kind of quiche, green salad with mushrooms, cranberry sauce (which my SIL makes mostly to pour over vanilla ice cream and eat plain for a week or two after Thanksgiving), possibly corn pudding, not sure what else). Priced for the 99%, please.
57: I thought a reference to the "female ninjas, disguised as farmers, attack the Ogami Itto and baby Daigoro with weapons concealed in peeled daikons" scene in the Lone Wolf and Cub movie would have been a little obscure.
Aside: Very few things are not improved, conceptually, by the addition of Lone Wolf and...: "Lone Wolf and Gingrich"! "Lone Wolf and Thanksgiving Traffic"! "Lone Wolf and Basel II"!
It's similar with "razorback" and movie titles: "Razorback and Her Sisters," "Easy Razorback," "Come Back to the Five-and-Dime, Razorback, Razorback."
will in 53: jonesing for my sister's chocolate pecan pie from my grandmother's recipe.)
Please provide the recipe, if it's not top secret. I'm nto a fan of regular pecan pie, but I love really good chocolate pecan pie.
74: You asked this last year. My answer is here and there are others in that thread.
wine with an all-veggie Thanksgiving meal
Hmm, all veggie is a curveball. Turkey pairs best with a crisp rosé or a sparkling white. I think you'd probably still do well with bubbly - there are lots of good, cheap Spanish cavas or Italian proseccos out there.
74: For starters, Domaine Rochette Brouilly Pisse-Vieille, Tavijn Grignolino d'Asti, Domaine de la Pépière "La Pépiè", Terres Dorres Beaujolais "L'Ancien", Trocadero Brut Rosé. I know where you can get all of those, but it's a bit out of your way.
79 is right. You can drink a decent bubbly with most things at the end of the day. You might think about Beaujolais (or whatever they do with Gamay in America, to keep the cost down). I know it's "white wine that happens to be red" for some people, but I'd guess it would do OK with the menu you suggest. NOT Beaujolais Nouveau, ever, under any circumstances.
Jesus-pwned. Must learn to type faster.
Or if you're not down with the bubbles and you've got a decent local wine shop, you might see what Austrian gruner veltliners they have on offer. I'm partial to Anton Bauer Gruner Veltliner Gmork, which I can usually find in the $9-12 range around here.
the local pumpkins in narnia are very dense and sweet and make a great pie.
Are they more or less like Japanese pumpkins, or pretty different?
I'm not doing Thanksgiving this year (never really took to it, look back fondly to an anti-Thanksgiving I used to go to with gourmet non-trad food and no sanctimony), but the following weekend there's a pie gathering, and I'm looking for something distinctive to make. Kabocha pie might be nice.
I just don't have a good hand for pastry -- I have a choice between too weak and crumbly to work with, and leathery.
This is what the vodka-crust trick is all about.
(And I'm making a separate gravy because I don't expect a lot of drippings from a turkey breast, and as I'm only feeding two people a complete, or even half bird was absurdly over-the-top).
Tweety makes our turkey, and does a damn fine job of it. Turns out that having a convection oven makes it possible for the bird to actually turn out that even, golden brown color it has in the Rockwell painting.
Thanks for the suggestions. We're big on prosecco and cava, so will definitely have some of that.
You asked this last year.
Thanks for RingTFA for me.
Hmm, all veggie is a curveball.
For the record, this is not my doing. My SIL doesn't think it's worth the trouble of cooking a turkey given that my brother and their kids are lukewarm about it.
I have secured enough Riesling to keep me and Tweety from having to drink any of the wood chips Chardonnay the rest of the family will be swilling.
"I secured enough Riesling" meaning "I sent Tweety to go buy some".
Also, I worry that "convection oven" and "chardonnay" give an incomplete picture. We'll also be having sauerkraut and hominy, as is traditional.
Do you hide the Riesling or openly taunt the others with your superior wine that they're not good enough to drink?
They don't even want it!
I know, can you believe it?
Domaine de la Pépière "La Pépiè"
I'm bringing some of that to Thanksgiving!
God, I hope that the people whose house I'm going to know how to make stuffing. I love stuffing.
(Yes, yes. The fruit is low.)
I was thinking about bringing a bottle of riesling to my sad little 3-person Thanksgiving tomorrow (me, my maiden aunt, and her wacky friend). I'm also bringing the pumpkin pie*, and now that I think about it, I should pick up some Brown-and-serve Rolls as well, as my aunt always forgets to.
*Pumpkin pie is my favorite thing ever, esp. with real whipped cream. We used to have sweet potatoe pie at my old job quite often, and that was good, but I always felt it could have been better if it had been 1/2 sweet potatoes and 1/2 pumpkin. It might have been vegan too, I can't remember.
Also, to my post in the other thread, the Thanksgiving I spent with my friend and his girlfriend was not only >40 lbs. for 3 people, but all of that food was vegetarian. There were two different kinds of mashed potatoes, both of which must have incorporated at least 10 potatoes.
That Riesling is necessary superior to Chardonnay seems to me tendentious. Offered the choice of a Grand Cru Chablis from a decent year and a Moldovan supermarket Riesling, I'd go with the Chardonnay. I assume there's more to your choice than just grapes.
I think I will probably try to get back from my aunt's place at not-too-late an hour, so that I can go next door and hang out with the Xtian punx, who do a GIGANTIC Xtian punk-and-family Thanksgiving every year. Never seen so much food at a private residence in my life!
96: There's Chardonnay that doesn't come from California?!!1!
96, 99: I think the tip off was the "wood chips." (The labels on a case of Puligny Montrachet got ruined and thus couldn't be sold and so it got handed off to me. Well, some of it. I am not too proud to accept such charity.)
The great thing about non serious wine drinkers is that you can serve them swill.
We will be drinking the family Voignier and Petit Verdot. I have some Malbec and some Australian SB that we enjoy.
The great thing about non serious wine drinkers is that you can serve them swill.
Me! I love swill.
Swill is just as good as any other wine.
Hey, I like a good Boone's Farm as much as the next person!
99: Chardonnay that doesn't come from California has usually escaped the degradation process that turns Californian chardonnays into something approximating butterscotch liqueur.
I think great chardonnay (which almost always comes from Burgundy or Chablis) is superior to anything dry Riesling can do. But for any given quality level Riesling is much cheaper -- if you're going under $30 you can almost always do better in Riesling. Plus you can get a touch of sweetness in your Riesling to match the sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce.
Upstate New York (Finger Lakes) Rieslings are a great deal. Try reserves from Herman Wiemer if you can find them. Konstantin Frank and Fox Run are good too.
2009 was a great vintage in Beaujolais and the higher end ones are great to drink now. 2009 red Burgundies are real good too and very nice now, but they get pricey fast. If you're going $25 or under it's probably better to get a higher-end 09 Beaujolais than a bottom-end generic 2009 Burgundy.
Dessert wines are fun. Sauternes or Loire dessert wines like Quarts de Chaume all go great with pumpkin pie, sweet Riesling can too but I prefer something like Sauternes with botrytis.
I am clearly totally unable to do real work today. Holiday, goddamnit!
I think of Zinfandel as the American beaujolais. Even though they are totally different in flavor profile, they both have the same conceptual pluses -- fun, a touch sweet, and a very broad easy food match.
105: pretty sure she was making a Tweety-family-themed funny.
105: We've tried getting non-Californian Chardonnays for that constituency in the family (99 was a joke), and they're not having it.
I think great chardonnay [...] is superior to anything dry Riesling can do.
Not to my tastes, though this is obviously a matter of personal preference.
They used to have this wine at the bar nearest my apartment in Berlin (oddly named Mädchen ohne Abitur), which is just about the most perfect-for-me everyday wine I can imagine.
108, 109: Oh, I got the joke. I just don't understand the appeal of the syrupy Cali Chards.
I'm really regretting agreeing to do Thanksgiving at all. I barely have to cook, just cookies with Mara and then green beans, but I'm horrified to think that I have to be pleasant all afternoon Thursday and then care for two four-year-olds all day Friday, and even then it's just the weekend and more kid time. Once Val and Alex leave with their family tomorrow morning, I'm going back to bed. I hope that solves the problem. If not, I'm about to call our babysitter to see when she'll be free. I'm not really looking forward to anything, though my dad's pies will be great.
Like Nathan upthread, it's a small Thanksgiving this year: of the dozen or so people I've joined for the last several years, at least 4 are in the midst of some kind of cold/flu/thing, now on antibiotics, and we called it all off. I still have an ear infection, so yeah, okay.
So I'm cooking for 3 -- the first time I've been the cook in years, and man. People are being really stubborn. One of the three declared he desperately wants this chicken pot pie. Sounds reasonable enough, a one-pot dish, more or less, so alright, if you're excited about it. Dividing up the shopping has been like pulling teeth, though. (Oh, you didn't get the mushrooms? Um, I think maybe we need the mushrooms; right then, I'll pick those up after work.)
Mostly I've fussed about whether I really need a dutch oven: nah.
Sorry, I just realized the recipe I linked is only available to those registered with America's Test Kitchen.
Now I'm eating chocolate chip cookies and drinking sauvignon blanc. Beer was a better pairing.
I thought I was bad for just making chicken pot pie for Thanksgiving, Moby. And being challenged and pleased by the prospect.
Am I crazy for serving Gewurtztraminer for T-Day? I know it's usually served with spicy food, but I was thinking enough acid to cut dark meat fatiness, not too overwhelming for white meat, but I can yet change direction. This whole living in wine country is bouth empowering and anxiety-inducing.
Also, oyster dressing made with canned oyseters and Ritz crackers FTW, bitches.
Sigh. Slightly Becks-style, making for typos even more than usual.
Am I crazy for serving Gewurtztraminer for T-Day?
Not according to the guys on "Cellar Notes" on NPR this evening.
119
t
You can just take the extra one from Gewurtztraminer. !
(It's not winesnob little bitchery, it's German little bitchery. I'm allowed!)
We're doing kosher (for meat meal) mashed potatoes. Think we're gonna use duck fat and broth to sub for butter and cream. Anyone have good suggestions? We have ail en confit to mash into the taters...
I just made brussels sprouts using the recipe in 61 for dinner tonight, and they were delicious. Thanks for posting it, apo.
Slightly premature, but happy birthday, Apo!
Just as I swear every year that I won't file my taxes on April 15, I swear I won't do my Thanksgiving shopping the evening before. Holy fuck what an ordeal. On the plus side, I got brussels sprouts and bacon and cream and other things to maintain balance in the Universe against my MIL's cooking, and the liquor store was just sitting there across the parking lot to tempt me into getting a bottle of bourbon.
I realized I have no one dish which stands out for me for Thanksgiving, but rather the whole assemblage, or maybe actually the mashed potato/stuffing/turkey leftover casserole with gravy. But I think it was all just imprinted on me* like a sexual fetish and none of it really has any culinary value any more so than the jello salads of my youth that you fuckheads generally decry. Football on Thanksgiving is also way overrated, although I am looking forward to Ravens v. 49ers tomorrow night. Actually I think the accumulated emotions and events of a few too many Thanksgivings has rendered it a holiday of definitely mixed feelings for me. Just thought I'd share.
* Although my wife's addition of kugel to the mix is something new that I look forward to.
That's called sweet potato spoonbread in my family, also a big favorite.
Can't remember what part of the state you're from, but now wondering if you ever had spoonbread at Boone Tavern. I wonder also if it's as good as I remember it as.
God's on the thorn, pies in the oven and all's right with the world!
I made a mix CD for Thundersnow for tomorrow's drive to Richmond. My work here is done.
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Slate is making Saiselgy run corrections when he misspells stuff? This should be interesting.
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"spoonbread" proper is different, being made out of cornmeal and, in my family, grated fresh corn off the cob. it is sooooo good. it is part of what so confised the west african dudes in italy that my cooking was exactly---but exactly--like that of sierra leone! how did that happen!!?
why don't they just pay some minion a pittance to spell-check? every single post will have a correction.
why don't they just pay some minion a pittance to spell-check? every single post will have a correction.
Alameida, I think the minion that hits the post button for you may have a tremor or something.
I must put down the laptop and begin the bittersweet chocolate tart that will be my contribution to t'giving dinner this year, along with the wine. I think the malbec with the bittersweet chocolate would be good, and prosecco with the turkey. I'm sad that there will probably be some fancy stuffing with sausage or oysters or something, instead of the bread/onion/sage stuffing I grew up on and still love more than any other t'giving food, except cranberry orange relish.
I'm getting ready to buy groceries.
Does anyone remember when that post with the absurdist recipes was? I think I remember Urple (or maybe someone else) saying that all recipes looked like that to him. I searched, but couldn't find it.
139: I was sleeping and then going for a very stiff, chilly morning run. But now? Coffee!
I want to know if urple cooks (or ferments? Or variously ripens?) anything for Thanksgiving.
139 -- I have to work much of the day. I might go see if I can find some Leiden cheese, though.
141: Here's the thread.
(My experience of late is that the hoohole has seemed to fix itself, and searches of the nature <content "content" site:unfogged.com> on Google are pretty reliable.)
Back from the store. Now to start prep.
138: turns out the plan is chestnut stuffing. Sniff.
Just made cranberry relish (just slid right out of the can!).* Next to squash/spinach gratin.
*Not really.
147. For heaven's sake, turkeys have two ends. Put poncy stuffing in the smaller cavity and the proper stuff in the big one. (Or thus it was always done chez nous in the days when we had turkey for Christmas.)
Making sweet potatoes for a potluck! And, since I'm stuck to the stove already, chili and maybe cake.
I had to shovel snow this morning.
Distinctly ridiculous: A grown man and woman leaving one another slightly awkward, halting voicemails from their parents' respective homes.
140: In MA, supermarkets are not allowed to open on Thanksgiving.
I'm in NE. You can buy bourbon in the grocery store, but most close at noon today I think.
Put poncy stuffing in the smaller cavity and the proper stuff in the big one.
Okay everybody set? Then lights, and... ACTION!
153: Not when we can awkwardly text one another our anodyne holiday wishes. Emotional repression is the smartphone's boon companion.
Because I want to get a head start on my holiday misantrhopy: False humility is the worst humility of all (from apo's link in 61):
but to be honest, calling it a recipe is a bit of a stretch. It involves a skillet, less than five ingredients, about ten minutes of your time, and minimal culinary skills.Just call it a simple recipe, for crying out loud.
Distinctly ridiculous: A grown man and woman leaving one another slightly awkward, halting voicemails from their parents' respective homes who live in separate cities happening to have Thanksgiving six blocks apart and planning a furtive meeting on the pretext of a run to the grocery store.
I've spent the morning cleaning the kitchen and suppressing a scowl over the fact that no one else seems to understand that a clean kitchen is an essential preparatory step to actually cooking.
149: If only I were in a position to seize control of the turkey! But it is being prepared on the other side of town, by acquaintances who are indifferent to my tastes.
The chocolate tart is far too rich and will probably make everyone ill. Call me Captain Hook.
A person doesn't actually need parchment paper to line a cookie sheet on which to bake biscuits, right? What's the danger, just that the biscuits will stick?
Regular biscuits? You don't need parchment paper. You can dust the cookie sheet lightly with flour if you're worried about sticking.
Sort of mini-biscuits (about 1 inch in diameter) incorporating fresh-grated parmesan cheese and heavy cream, to later be sprinkled atop the pot pie before baking. I'll dust the cookie sheet if the dough seems absurdly sticky -- good call.
I have about a half ton of ingredients to cart over to my parents' house -- they're hosting, but they're only cooking the turkey and the stuffing (my dad insists on putting sausage in the stuffing, which is, by the way, gross), and I'm making everything else.
My mom insists that I cook over at their house. I don't quite see how that's going to work, since most of my dishes (butternut squash, brussels sprouts, etc.) will need oven space, which will be occupied by the turkey. I wanted to cook it all at my place and then go over there at the last minute, but my mom insists that Thanksgiving is about "togetherness" and "family" or some such nonsense, which I guess means that we will spend the day jostling each other in the kitchen, sniping at each other about how you said you only needed the oven for fifteen more minutes and it's been almost half an hour, and yelling at my dad to get out if you're not helping and for god's sake stop picking the crispy crumb bits off the top of the pie.
It occurred to me that I didn't know the kosher-ness of my source of duckfat, so I went with olive oil and veggie broth for my mashed potatoes. Still taste pretty good. Hope they hold until dinner time.
168: You could make the brussels sprouts in a skillet, with zero to four ingredients and 15 minutes.
ToS reminds me, I've got to get the skull goblets down from the attic.
Aw, it is about togetherness and family and all that, jms ... as long as people are helpful and cooperative, and can, uh, take instruction.
My cooking partner has shown up and assures me that no parchment paper is needed, so alright, then. It helps a great deal when responsibility for any mishaps is shared.
BTW, can a person bake biscuits on wax paper if there is concern on this front?
You could make the brussels sprouts in a skillet
I might try that. I also have a turbo broiler, which I never use -- maybe this is the occasion to bring it out. (Over the course of several years, various members of my then-boyfriend's family gifted me with various turbo broilers. (Why? I don't know. I also received from them several beaded and/or battery-powered car seat back massagers.) I kept them stacked in their boxes; they took up a lot of space. After we broke up I began distributing them to charities and family members. This is the last one.)
Parsimon, don't use wax paper, as it will burn.
174.last: Okay.
Good luck. Emphasize to your parents that the turkey has to "rest" for quite a while -- so you can use the oven.
For the first time in forever, the afternoon football game is actually good, since Detroit doesn't suck this year.
Mara and I made not-too-sweet cookies that I think will be awesome. I get to pat myself on the back for doing cut outs (her choice) so I could make lumps from the extra bits that aren't pretty enough to take to Grandma's and thus must be eaten here and now.
I've also got green beans, tomatoes, and potatoes together on the stove. I don't like cooked green beans and my vegetarian brother ruled out the salt pork Lee would usually have thrown in rather than the other veggies, plus my mother and brother don't eat onions and most other recipes were ruled out. I hope it's good, but I won't take any leftovers regardless.
Lee is having moments of jerkiness, like doing her annual complaint that NO ONE eats Tgiving dinner at 5 pm and why couldn't she have found friends to eat with instead, etc., and maybe she'll just stay home and watch football and have me bring her a plate. Then she went off and watched football and I guess felt better, at which point she asked me to make her deviled eggs (which I also don't eat) because it's not Thanksgiving without them. I'm being a barbarian and using icky ballpark mustard because she threw away all my good mustards during the move.
(Also I get really indignant when white parents call their black children by food=skin names but I'm a little jealous that Mara can smear melted chocolate chips all over her cheeks without much beyond the tell-tale sheen giving her away.
Couldn't find any Leiden. I did get some chipotle gouda, which the Pilgrims totally would have eaten if anyone had thought of it yet.
I spoke too soon. Has reverted to a traditional game with Detroit getting blown out. Poor Detroit.
Thorn, I know you guys don't at all fit into the butch/femme thing, but some of the odder things you report from Lee give me a mental picture of her absurdly costumed as a grumpy sexist 1950s husband/father (complete with braces, "wifebeater" tshirt, beer can, refusal to do "women's work", and all that). I realise this is absurd but I'm always interested in how other people manage sharing out domestic tasks.
180: I don't WANT us to fit that, but we do in certain respects. I cook, she grills. I knit, she watches sports. There's also just the Jack Spratt aspect where I like things clean and she likes them tidy (and neither of us cares much about the other element) and she's sociable and I'm hateful and so on. Her beer's in a bottle today and there are neither suspenders nor tank tops in her wardrobe, but she's wearing a hat in the house and talking about how great deviled eggs are with beer, so at least I got that right.
I'm more mchanically inclined than she is and end up being the one who fixes things and putting together Ikea furniture, while she loves hanging pictures. Each of us thinks the other is terrible at matching colors, but obviously I'm the one who's right.
Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night (try not to make yourselves sick).
Deviled eggs and beer are objectively great, paired or separately.
I'm full. I couldn't eat another bite. My wife looked at the remains of the turkey: "We have so much left over! Didn't we have less left over last year? Was this a bigger turkey?"
Happy Thanksgiving to all. Plus thanks to Unfogged for being a comfort and an entertainment during a, shall we say, complicated period in my life. Also for being a fantastic dating service.
Wait, Unfogged is a dating service? By dating service do you mean a provider of anti-relationship rationalizations? Happy Thanksgiving anyway, Unfogged.
Also for being a fantastic dating service.
Word.
Wait, Unfogged is a dating service?
Duh. Works like a charm!
I'm thankful the turkey turned out pretty well even though this terrifying oven left it fully cooked in less than an hour and a half.
Happy Thanksgiving, Internet reprobates friends. Your typing comforts one when, from time to time, one feels the implacable, swallowing dark of loneliness overcoming.
I've been pushing fernet-branca this Thanksgiving holiday. No one likes it straight, but I managed to popularize the Hanky-Panky and some variations thereon.
Happy holiday, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.
I endorse 192. The dating service thing mentioned in 185 is far too scary to contemplate.
We have some fernet (not Branca) in the car, but I'm the only one who likes it and I'm not particularly fired up to have any right now.
From what I've had of it straight, the car is the right place for it. Probably the innermost workings.
I did not stuff myself this year and am only just the littlest bit wine-tipsy. Home and the kids are asleep. I will need to work most of the rest of the weekend to get this stupid stat report out on time (which just sucks), but my brother is head over heels in love with somebody new and I saw all these nieces and nephews today who are suddenly in high school and have changed from kids into young adults and oh man do I love the way autumn smells. So I'm feeling really lucky and grateful right now, and even hopeful that we're seeing the beginnings of something really big and momentous happening around the world.
Happy Thanksgiving, friends.
Dinner is done. Everything turned out pretty well, but I think I need to invest in chafing dishes or something to keep all six things that need to be warm warm at the same time. Pumpkin pie turned out a tad mushy, but perfectly flavorful. It'll make great breakfast. I am thankful to the fine folks at Cooks Illustrated for the fact that I was able to make four different nontrivial dishes from scratch for the first time and have all of them work.
196: I love it, but it would be fair to say I have weird taste.
197: That's really wonderful, apo. Hope your hopefulness isn't misplaced.
HTG to you all.
Happy Thanksgiving to the stuffed, the tipsy, the weird health freaks, and all the Canadians who have a strange holiday schedule.
199: Fernet is bizarrely popular here. The non-Branca stuff I've had is actually rather tasty, but I don't understand the appeal of the most widely-available stuff.
And I'm thankful I didn't light my eyebrows on fire when the vin in the coq au vin I'm making for dinner spontaneously flambeed when I went to check on it. Hopefully it'll be tasty enough to make up for the danger.
Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.
Happy Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, back to work.
Tomorrow is when my employer celebrates Columbus Day. All the holidays involving Native Americans getting fucked over are combined into a four day weekend.
You mean all of us, or do you want Hitler to have a happy Thanksgiving?
Maybe he meant Happy Thanksgiving, al. She did say they'd be celebrating on Friday and that's now there. Or maybe she is Hitler. Dunno.
Real nice, POWs/MIAs never have a Happy Thanksgiving.
happy thanksgiving all! I saw kevin spacey in richard III last night and it was AMAZING, maybe the best like shakespeare production I've ever seen. W were in the 3rd row too (tickets courtesy of a friend whose husband couldn't come at the last minute). so, I put off thanksgiving till today. turkey on the grill over indirect heat with real hardwood charcoal, blanched tiny green beans with bacon cream sauce and fried shallots [glances reprovingly at flippanter for his doubting thomas ways], roasted daikon as above, cauliflower with curry, salad with persimmons and watercress, biscuits, bread, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, pecan, pumpkin and apple pie (tragically out of flour and my maid just had to run to the store, tiniest violin--wait, I'm not masturbating though. right now.
Happy Thanksgiving! Brussels spouts turned out well as did our fig and sausage stuffing. Niece was sick so I did not get any chocolate pecan pie.
Hope all of you Unfoggeders are well!
Wait, Unfogged is a dating service?
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. My boss invited me to hers, and it turned out to be quite pleasant.
Urgh, there's an election today, and the labo/ur party is going to get thrashed (25-30% of the vote), and it is going to be particularly unpleasant. At least my guy will get re-elected --- thanks to the earthquake --- as will the amazing candidate in the next district over, who is the annointed heir of the one guy who left the labo/ur party in the 1980s when we went all neo-liberal. But apart from that urgh. I think the Nation/al Party (centre-right) will get an absolute majority.
And I suspect M/M/P may not win the referendum, meaning another bloody referendum in three years, with the return of F/P/P as one possible outcome.
(And by the way, this comment is strictly speaking in breach of the Elec/toral Act s197(a).)
New Zealand law is infamously harsh on googleproofing.
substituting a "0" for an "O" in your email password can get you up to seven years, I hear.
It's a Maori thing. Poor in other natural resources, the Maori are rich in vowels, and treat them with special reverence - a reverence espoused by the New Zealand government and enshrined in the Treaty of Waitangi.
197: and even hopeful that we're seeing the beginnings of something really big and momentous happening around the world.
Hear hear.
The Thanksgiving meal here turned out so well that I was reminded how important to well-being it is to eat well (if you have the time and resources): here's to caring for ourselves and one another.
