Thanksgiving repost…
I’ve posted this a few times over the years. I’ll put the original, and end with updated comments.
With the gastronomic orgy that is Thanksgiving upon us, my thoughts, as ever, turn to food. Good food, to be specific.
My turkey will be free-range, brined, and the meat under the skin basted with a mixture of bourbon, brown sugar and herbs. The fingerling potatoes will be gently sauteed in clarified butter and coated with fresh ground pepper and Himalayan pink sea salt. There will be a stuffing of home-baked whole-grain breads liberally paired with fresh sage leaves and onion. Asparagus will roast with extra-virgin olive oil and garlic. My cranberry compote will be simmered with orange peel and ruby port. A salad of mesclun greens, dried pears, walnuts and Roquefort will be lightly dressed with walnut oil and pear-infused vinegar. There will be nothing that has ever seen the inside of a can or box, injected with vegetable oil or a "flavor enhancing solution" (Pooh to you with knobs on, Butterball!), preserved, factory-farmed, or otherwise tampered with.
I freely admit to being a food snob and sensualist. I reject commodity foods – factory raised, tasteless abominations. Give me the free-range, the organic, the unpreserved, the all-natural, the fresh! I defy anyone who has ever tasted free-range Tamworth pork to ever again eat something from Smithfield Packing and call it food.
In this fast-food world, good food needs a champion. I used to hold my tongue when bottled salad dressing was placed in front of me, or if someone served well-done lamb. No longer. Once I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. He told me that my dressing needed more vinegar. He was wrong about that. Dead wrong.
Before you cast the stone that "making anything other than simple food is impractical," let me say that I have nothing against simple food. Well-made simple food. There is nothing wrong with a grilled-chesse sandwich – as long as it is made with a whole grain bread and aged English farmhouse cheddar. Posession of Wonder Bread and American "cheese food" that comes wrapped in little plastic sleeves will be an offense punishable by death when I’m in charge. And that bitch Sandra Lee from Semi-Homemade on the Food Network is the first against the wall.
Now the 2012 update…
This year sees a departure from a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal.
Our first course will be Moulard Duck Breast with a Wine, Pomegranate and Dried Cherry reduction.
The second course is a Porcini Mushroom Risotto.
The third course is a Crown Roast of Pork, with Braised Kale and Duck-Fat Sautéed Potatoes.
Dessert is a Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Crème Anglaise.
Will your duck be crispy skinned? I recently discovered the joys of duck confit and order it whenever I see it on the menu. Happy Thanksgiving and buon appetito.
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I agree with you. To me American Cheese is an oxymoron, my wife and kids have heard me joke so many time that ‘American cheese is not cheese’ at Subway or Togos.. Enjoy the festivities, and the forced gym time afterwards 🙂
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So, what time should I be there?!? When my mom was alive and well and pre-Alzheimer’s and the one who did most of the T’giving cooking, she’d always buy a free-range turkey. It was the best turkey I’ve ever had in my life, and I miss it terribly now that my sister-in-law does the turkey… and buys a Butterball. I nibble and pretend to enjoy it.
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I agree with you, I don’t get quite as fancy as you do, but I buy Hutterite poultry and I just cooked 5 loaves of good whole grain bread myself. And 4 dozen chocolate chips cookies, 4 dozen coconut cookies, and I also shovelled my whole driveway. Am I ambitous or what? Lol!!!! Tomorrow I might make date cookies. For the boys.
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I hate wonder bread. It tastes sweet and never goes bad, there is something wrong with that.
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I so, so agree with you about Sandra Lee. She and Rachael Ray ought to be dropped into a deep dark hole and forgotten. And yes, American food tends to be an abomination — and I’ve been steadily swinging J into that line of thinking. RYN: Have you read any of the Lucky Peach magazines/journals? They’re right up your alley in terms of finding food. They’ve just released the Chinatown issue.
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Happy Thanksgiving. It felt good just to read this !!
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Scratch made is best, I agree. NOTHING I have prepared this year is pre made. Most people cannot afford to “cook fresh”. That’s sad indeed.
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I almost feel sated just reading this. What time is it served? And your wine choices?
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I’ve posted this a few times over the years. Oh, Bedlam, I could never tire of your eloquent food talk. As it not ever, dearie.
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Oy! Happy Thanksgiving. I’m now so hungry I’m going to hunt down something to eat. lolol.
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Yes! And what’re you drinking? (I have made a conscious effort to drink more Italian wines in the last few weeks – in your honour, of course -.) Tonight I had a lovely Veneto pinot noir. Blind I would have said of it a côte de nuits. Verrry nice.
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I’ve become quite fussy about my food too.. Life is too short not to enjoy the fine foods and would be shorter still if we ate all the nasty refined things. Enjoy!
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I agree with your philosophy and drool at your descriptions. Even thinking about the typical American diet makes me nauseated. White bread? Might as well eat styrofoam. This is why I cook all my own meals using as much local and organic as possible. Not for political reasons BECAUSE IT TASTES BETTER.
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