A Menu for Thanksgiving

I’m going to squeak in just barely with my promised post today.  But here it is folks (drumroll, please):

Over the next few weeks, up until Thanksgiving, I’m going to be sharing with you recipes that I think are delicious, and put all together will make an amazing Thanksgiving meal.  I’ll not only provide the individual recipes, I will also give you in the week before Thanksgiving a shopping list (that you can edit, so that you can take our things like “salt” or “tomato paste” if you already own those things) and a detailed timeline of what to make when, so you’re not frantically finishing up as your guests are milling about hungry.

The idea is, that with these recipes you will not only be able to enjoy the cooking, but you’ll also enjoy the actual holiday.  I’ve done everything from undercook the turkey to burning the pecans for pecan pie to oblivion and in between, so I know that Thanksgiving preparations can be stressful. Hopefully with these recipes, tips, and schedules you’ll be able to cook your Thanksgiving with a bit more confidence (and success) than some of my past Thanksgivings.  And remember the mantra I have with my sisters: something always has to go wrong with the food on Thanksgiving, otherwise it’s just not Thanksgiving.  It’s how you roll with it that counts.

So, here is the menu we’ll be talking about around here for the next few weeks (look familiar?):

Butternut Squash Soup
Roast Turkey with Herbed Stuffing
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Dinner Rolls
Pumpkin Pie

To kick it off, grab a martini glass (or any glass, for that matter, we’re not standing on ceremony here) and whip up an Apple Martini – not that you need an excuse, but if you’re going to be serving this along with your Thanksgiving you have to test it out first, right?

A Coffeehouse Culture

 

For Easter I went to Saratoga Springs to visit my 94-year-old grandfather and a sprinkling of my extended and immediate family. Every morning we would go downtown to a café for breakfast. We discovered Uncommon Grounds almost ten years ago on another visit and fell in love with their breakfast bagels and coffee. Now, anyone who reads my blog regularly knows that I love the coffeehouse culture. Over an espresso macchiato during one of our mornings I mused what exactly it is that I like about them. I discovered that I am very particular indeed about what makes a perfect coffeehouse.

The Egg Cream Conundrum

 

This post came out of a reading assignment for my food writing class. The topic was memoirs, and one article we had to read told the story of a boy’s experience making egg creams on Wall Street one summer. Many things about the article made me want to throw it across the room, but one aspect in particular disturbed me: he never explained what an egg cream was.

In class during the discussion, I critiqued, “He never says where the eggs or cream come into this recipe.” Many students looked at me surprised and several all at once said “It doesn’t have eggs or cream.”

Needless to say, my Pacific-Northwest/European upbringing had successfully flown over the Northeast, specifically New York, and landed gracefully in ignorant egg-cream-free country.