Friday, November 17, 2006
The Big Meal
I love cooking the Thanksgiving meal. It’s the closest our kitchen gets to being the place of boiling oil and flesh and personal intrigue that Anthony Bourdain chronicled in his Kitchen Confidential. Our kitchen is long and narrow. Very narrow. If both my ever-loving spouse and I are in the room simultaneously, you’d be hard-pressed to slip a Santoku between us. Just as a note, the closeness is not due to our oversampling of boiling/frying/baking foods as they're being prepared. Like I said, our kitchen is narrow; it is the Kate Moss of kitchen designs. Over the years we’ve practiced a dervish-like dance of knives and colanders, with the clinking of steel and crashing of pots being our musical background. For certain meals, one or the other retreats from the preparation field as we know there would be calamities of a disproportionate size.
Thanksgiving brings its own big honking toot. Foods only made once a year, visitors unfamiliar with the holiday family drama, time schedules limited by one stove and one oven. And that stove/oven? Over 20 years old and limited in its BTU output; you light the gas burners, put your head, sideways, on the stove top, and blow in hopes of adding additional oxygen to increase the heat. Somehow, it always works out. The finished items have a certain enjoyable edibility, which on occasion and with enough spices and luck, turn out almost wonderful. Well, memorable at least. An excess of food is always made. We tend to spread our bets on taste by going for the multiple plates rather than just 3 or 4 dishes. Our more successful T-day meals, statistically speaking, end up with the cooks suffering a higher proportion of nicks and burns. Following this reasoning, our best Thanksgiving would be one where my ever-loving spouse or I would lose a digit or limb. Our dreams of retirement somewhere later in this century preclude loss of any body parts, so we’ve refused, thus far, to destructure ourselves for the sake of a meal.
So, tentatively, here's where we hope to end up next Thursday.
Most Important Ingredients
Friends who kindly accepted a seat at our table on Thanksgiving.
A Beginning
A short glass of homemade Rakija
Živeli!
On the Plate
Juha/Chicken Soup w/ Noklice
Fresh Cranberry Sauce (w/ Orange rind)
Mushrooms Berkeley
8 lb Turkey Breast (Brined o’nite with water, Kosher salt, rosemary, peppercorns, ginger root, celery, oranges)
5 lbs of fried Chicken Breast & Tenderlings
Mashed Yukon Gold Potatoes
Baked Jarslberg Macaroni w/ Bechenel (mucho!) cream sauce
String Beans with Garlic and Ginger (Thank you NYT Wed. food section!)
Basmati Rice and Green Peas w/ Meyer lemon-infused grapeseed oil
Homemade Bread
Couch Food
Pecan-Rum Pie
Pumpkin cream Pie
Vanilla & Strawberry Ice Cream
Loose teas, coffees (a current favorite here in the sticks is New Mexico Pinon Coffee)
The Liquids
Apollinaris
Gerolsteiner
Perrier Lemon
Nouveau Beaujolais
2003 Corzano e Paterno Il Corzano Rosso Toscano
2004 Freiherr von Heddesdorff Winninger Uhlen Riesling Spatlese Trocken
Other medicinals available
On the (CD) Platter
Herbie Hancock – The Piano
Charlie Haden Hank Jones – Steal Away
Duke Ellington & Ray Brown – This One’s for Blanton
Bill Charlap Trio – Written in the Stars
Peggy Lee – Trav'lin' Light
Bill Charlap - Stardust
Tomorrow, Saturday, off early to Italian Market in Philly for salami, peppers, mascarpone, mozzarella, and something else that may strike my fancy. Food & friends on Thursday! What can be better?
How are your (American) Thanksgiving plans coming together?
Note Bene: The all important after-Thanksgiving recipe for Turkey Chile has been provided by Whisky Prajer here. Not being a turkey fan, I was most pleased to use this recipe last year to salvage the remains of T-day. Can't say enough about this recipe. A bowl of this chili, a hunk of crusty Italian bread, and a bottle of brew and you'll be enjoying Black Friday as you relax the day after.
Note Bene duo: Searchie has provided some gems of recipes. I can't believe she actually provided the recipe for Grand Marnier-Apricot-Sausage Stuffing, in particular. And all without being under duress. Next T-day, I'll definitely be trying these out. This year, unfortunately, the meal is like one of those super giant tankers. Once the course is set, it takes forever to make a turn. Thanks, Searchie!
Labels: Holidays
Comments:
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
I love cooking for Thanksgiving, too. My specialty is a killer Grand Marnier-apricot-sausage stuffing.
This year, I have much to be thankful for.
This year, I have much to be thankful for.
# opined by 
: 4:06 PM, November 17, 2006
: 4:06 PM, November 17, 2006
Wow! Not that I'd expect anything less from you. And, it sounds like one of those cross-meals. Seems it could be served somewhere between appetizer, entre, or dessert.
It works much better as actual stuffing inside the turkey -- something is lost when I bake it separately.
I forgot to mention the excellent layered pumpkin mousse and creme fraiche dessert I also make when I have the time and the inclination ... and I seem to have both this year.
I may try your string beans with garlic and ginger -- thanks, Darko.
Have you ever tried to deep-fry a whole turkey?
I forgot to mention the excellent layered pumpkin mousse and creme fraiche dessert I also make when I have the time and the inclination ... and I seem to have both this year.
I may try your string beans with garlic and ginger -- thanks, Darko.
Have you ever tried to deep-fry a whole turkey?
# opined by : 4:58 PM, November 17, 2006
: 4:58 PM, November 17, 2006
Friends, one whose husband is a volunteer fireman, have deep-fried a turkey with much success. With the primitive stove we have, I am frankly terrified that, with all of that boiling roiling oli, there would inevitably be such a conflaguration that we would be having T-day dinner in our backyard warmed by the charred remains of our house. Our friend, the fireman, has quite a collection of suppressing liquids close by as he deep-frys away.
Searchie, I'm not a real turkey fan; I like the smell and the idea more than the actual eating. What I look forward to, as far as the turkey is concerned, is using the remains of T-day for Turkey chili a la Whisky Prajer. I'm hoping he's reading this and will be posting that recipe shortly! I had it in my paws last year and have misplaced it. It is devine.
Searchie, I'm not a real turkey fan; I like the smell and the idea more than the actual eating. What I look forward to, as far as the turkey is concerned, is using the remains of T-day for Turkey chili a la Whisky Prajer. I'm hoping he's reading this and will be posting that recipe shortly! I had it in my paws last year and have misplaced it. It is devine.
I'd just like to say that this whole set-up...food, music, entertainment (provided by the chefs), all if it sounds divine. What time is dinner served? I'll bring my own place setting. ;-)
CDs? Erm... why? Isn't conversation enough? I can understand a bit of football in the background for those for whom it's tradition, but otherwise, Thanksgiving is a day for friends and family. That means conversation and quiet belching. And if there's a lull in the conversation for digestive silence, all the better.
The idea of playing music during Thanksgiving dinner reminds me of the awful dinner scene during American Beauty. It's unnecessary atmosphere.
The idea of playing music during Thanksgiving dinner reminds me of the awful dinner scene during American Beauty. It's unnecessary atmosphere.
# opined by : 7:50 PM, November 18, 2006
: 7:50 PM, November 18, 2006
Pardon me, Ned. What are you smoking? You'd rather hear the din of football in the background than some lilting piano music? I'd propose there is no better backdrop to stimulating conversation than good music, at the right volume, of course. Just my opinion.
Gwynne, I appreciate your kind comments. I know belching is an accepted custom in China and perhaps that was what Ned was referring to, a Chinese Thanksgiving, when he voiced preference for belching over music.
While belching, usually accompanied by an apology, does occur at our dinner table, it is not the sought after noise affect. Background music helps to zone out bodily function orchestras and we all seem pleased with it.
So, however you celebrate your Thanksgiving, I hope it is filled with friends, food, and the background noise of your preference.
While belching, usually accompanied by an apology, does occur at our dinner table, it is not the sought after noise affect. Background music helps to zone out bodily function orchestras and we all seem pleased with it.
So, however you celebrate your Thanksgiving, I hope it is filled with friends, food, and the background noise of your preference.
Ah, so belching is acceptable, but never spitting. Good. So, are there also pilgrams in the Chinese Thanksgiving celebration? Celebrating Thanksgiving in China strikes me as odd somehow. Not quite as odd as celebrating Independence Day in Britain, but still. ;-)
Lovely!
Say, do you order the New Mexico Pinon Coffee or have you found a supplier out here in the east?
When I was in New Mexico a scant two months ago, I completely befuddled the managers of both an Albertson's and a Whole Foods Mart by asking for the stuff. They'd never heard of it.
Judging by your favorable remarks about it, if you're ordering it I assume you think it's worth the hefty shipping cost they like to charge.
Say, do you order the New Mexico Pinon Coffee or have you found a supplier out here in the east?
When I was in New Mexico a scant two months ago, I completely befuddled the managers of both an Albertson's and a Whole Foods Mart by asking for the stuff. They'd never heard of it.
Judging by your favorable remarks about it, if you're ordering it I assume you think it's worth the hefty shipping cost they like to charge.
# opined by : 7:38 PM, November 20, 2006
: 7:38 PM, November 20, 2006
Hey Jim,
Actually we've lucked out. The Pinon is available in the Aisle of Much Interest at the Trader Joe's in our area. $6.99 for 12 (or was it 14?) oz. Great back taste on that Pinon, no?
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Actually we've lucked out. The Pinon is available in the Aisle of Much Interest at the Trader Joe's in our area. $6.99 for 12 (or was it 14?) oz. Great back taste on that Pinon, no?
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
