GIVING THANKS

Turkey for beginners, gravy, mashed potatoes, dressing, bacterial hazards of stuffing~turkey thighs~sweet potatoes~cranberries~lamb neck~white port from Georgia~kitchen disasters

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash.

100 years ago, the price of turkey was 18 cents a pound. Today, it’s $1+ a pound.

Ah, traditions. Thanksgiving is surely the most-food-tradition-laced or most-painfully-boring-food U.S. holiday. For me, anyway, it is. I don’t much like turkey—roasted, smoked, or deep-fried—save a few bites of thigh, and then I’m done. But for those of you who are 100% traditional, I’ve found this dry-brined turkey recipe. It is a coolio idea. I am a true fanboy, however, of plain old mashed potatoes like my dad,

As written out by one of his grandchildren

Paul Christensen, used to make (recipe above) and—the pièce de résistance—oh-so-simple dressing. Oh, but I can’t overlook my candied sweet potatoes are my side wonder. One out of ten years it’s spectacular. The other years, I do like it lots. And, oh, how could I leave out that I’m way keen on my wife’s cranberry dish.

For you experimenters, for your stuffing, use cornbread, white bread, French bread, biscuits, whole wheat, rye, challah, potato bread, sandwich bread or hamburger buns, if you will. But I’m a Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Classic Stuffing guy, white and wheat breads all gussied up with herbs and spices, then celery and onions.

I’m a Classic Stuffing guy

I add sausage, too, but I skip the fresh rosemary, nuts, mushrooms, raisins, cherries, and apple chunks. I won’t add shrimp, crab, or oysters either. And it’s gotta be real brown before coming out of the oven, not just warmed and squishy with a touch of color on top. Real, real brown. In addition, as a public service, I offer the following turkey options plus alternatives to my recipes for mashers and dressing.

Cooking your very first Thanksgiving turkey, should you choose to do so, can be daunting. Jenny Rostenbach from “Dinner: A Love Story,” can guide you through your first with confidence.

If you don’t want to take my lead away from a bird, take some turkey tips from Anne Bryn: Between the Layers “Dressing Up Thanksgiving - No.167,” a brilliantly thorough treatise on the bird, the bird’s neck cavity, the bacterial hazards of stuffing, the dressing, the gravy, and the pie.

Cooking for my Soul has a selection of succulent sides such as maple roasted acorn squash to check out. Here’s one wild mushroom stuffing recipe from Leite’s Culinaria I can’t resist sharing, plus six highly inventive ideas.

The Smitten Kitchen features some innovative turkey, stuffing, and sides recipes, if you’re hunting around for even ideas. Dry-brined turkey, challah stuffing, kale and caramelized onion stuffing, apple and herb stuffing, corn pudding, slow-roasted sweet potatoes, broccoli-cheddar-wild-rice casserole, root vegetable gratin, brussels sprouts and pomegranate salad, with parsley pecorino biscuits.

Turkey Thighs

An alternative to the big bird in the oven is only part of the big bird in the oven. Susanality has a recipe for y’all, Braised Turkey Thighs Osso Buco Style. Being keen on osso buco as I am, there’s an ever so slight chance I’ll try this dish if pressured to do turkey come this Thanksgiving.

Sweet Potatoes

My candied sweet potatoes can be a wonder. Here are the basics. Peel enough sweet potatoes to fill your favorite baking pan. Add several glugs of maple syrup, a stick of butter, and a couple handsfull of brown sugar. Put in a 450 degree oven and hammer the potatoes for a couple hours, checking after that each hour until the liquid surrounding the potatoes has turned into a very thick sauce. Also turn the potatoes over each hour to even out the cooking. Then cook longer, checking hour after hour to create that candied sauce. If all that sounds too time consuming or aggressive for you, these slow roasted sweet potato delights sound delightful. It’s done when you say it is.

Cranberries

Insanely Good Recipes has assembled 30 fetching recipes for cranberries if you don’t want to use my wife’s explosively satisfying recipe, which I’m trying to get her to share and which I won’t hold against you. I can’t promise she won’t. She will know somehow, trust me!

For my wife’s cranberry-currant-walnut sauce: 1 pound fresh cranberries, 1 1/4 cups sugar, 1 cup red currant preserves, 1 cup water, 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, 2 Tbsp grated orange peel. Combine cranberries, sugar, preserves, and water in large saucepan; heat to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer uncovered 20 minutes; skim foam; remove from heat. Stir in walnuts and orange peel. Refrigerate (covered) overnight.

Lamb Neck

The Blackberry Farm Cookbook (2009)

Venturing far from serving a winged creature for Thanksgiving, I’m considering an equally special meal, but from a four-footed creature. In 2009, I purchased The Blackberry Farm Cookbook, from Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tenn., around the time of its release. The proprietor then, Sam Beall, wrote in it for me this memorable inscription: “May this inspire you for many meals to come! Stir up life!” I’ve experienced many a first at this luxury inn, including this lamb neck recipe, to my great satisfaction.

White Port from Georgia

While I haven’t tried this good looking port from Chateau Elan, I have every intention of doing so since I’m on a port tear . . . be it white, ruby, or vintage. Why? Because some wine keen friends who live in Atlanta think a lot of Chateau Elan.

Holiday Shopping

If you want to put a taste of the South in your mouth this holiday, several can be had at Butcher & Bee in Charleston, S.C., a special specialty provisions shop featuring coffees, juices, bourbon pecan pie, breads, rolls, Nashville-style honey apple upside down cake, and fermented honey.

Kitchen Disasters

While embarrassing, I do like to pass on these tales of personal trauma to help prevent them from being repeated. I’ve cooked most meals in our home during our 53 years of marriage. My wife says she welcomes my efforts. I’ve got a record of cooking food that’s edible 99% of the time—my score, not hers. But . . . .

1. Salmon en Croûte

In the 1970s came salmon en croûte. Maybe I’ve really been screwing up for a long long time, but the only one I remember from years past is a New Year’s Eve meal Hayden LeClair, at the time a Nordic Ware honcho—the Bundt cake pan company folks—and I tried to make. We shopped, we prepped, we cooked, and we tossed it all in the garbage together without eating a bite. We were aspiring foodies practicing on our spouses who failed miserably. I wish Cooking for My Soul was around back then to offer this easy recipe. I’m a fan of Jamie Oliver, too, so I might have checked out this recipe.

2. Tuna in Olive Oil

3. Broken Oval Ceramic Baking Dish

4. Grilled Cheese Sandwich

No one in the history of sandwiches has ever screwed up a grilled cheese sandwich, I’m guessing. But I did . . . last week. Loving grilled cheese sandwiches as my wife and I do every once in awhile, with or without a side of tomato soup, makes for a simple dinner. No shopping, with no prep, no dishes to clean.

What Velveeta calls “liquid gold”

My wife usually makes them with one slice of American cheese, a type of processed cheese made by mixing one or more types of cheeses, including Cheddar, a washed curd, Colby, and a granular one. Despite being called “American cheese,” it’s really “pasteurized process cheese food.” It was a staple growing up in the Midwest along with Jell-O . . . .

What I call inedible

Inspiration led me to want to use, not one, but two slices on each sandwich. The lesson here is surely a case of “less is more,” absolutely with “process cheese food,” utterly unlike with cheesecake or with chocolate gelato where more is unquestionably better. More in this case resulted in a gooey, glob of artificially inedible guck. My wife tossed 3/4 of hers, I only half of mine.

Makes me wonder when I’ll stop screwing up in the kitchen . . . .

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