Dear Charlotte,
Five days in Vermont with my family, locked in by the cold and snow, could be a blessing or a curse. So far, I've been lucky.
Thanksgiving has its staple foods - turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce - and the varied possibilities of each offer enough to fill an entire day of cooking.
As far as my family goes: plain potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, two stuffings and a huge organic turkey. Luckily, Mom is friends with an organic turkey farmer who told us how best to cookit (which, FYI, is to put it in the oven with NO seasoning or basting, for an hour per every four pounds -- delicious).
There are also innumerable other dishes to be had, which are usually some sort of family recipe or tradition. Nana's sweet potato soufflé sits at the top of the list. The potatoes, sugar and egg make a creamy soufflé, topped with a brown sugar and pecan crust. It's sinful.
Aside from our green beans and pickles, there is one more notable dish: For years my dad has been making the same stuffing, which he stuffs inside the turkey as it cooks. For this reason, I refused to eat it while growing up. This year, however, I discovered its glory. Sausage, sweet potatoes, breadcrumbs and celery come together in a mushy but incredible stuffing. This Thanksgiving, I made up for 18 wasted years without it all in one sitting.
As desserts go, we went simple, yet classy: Homemade pumpkin pie with pecan tarts and homemade whipped cream. We cheated in buying the pie crust, but it still tasted great.
The actual consumption went surprisingly quickly. Due to a combination of wine and spending the whole day cooking, everyone just devoured their food.
My Thanksgiving was quintessentially New England, from the snow to the food to the wine. How was yours?
My dear Win,
Until I was eight or nine, some close family friends invited us to share their family's feast. Not to sound whiny, but since that tradition died - the couple retired to Arizona and my parents, erm, no longer live together - Thanksgiving hasn't been something I look forward to.
Every year reveals each parent's new scheme to fabricate some new tradition, as they pretend their freshly minted American citizenships mean they're interested in patriotic holidays.
It's one part "Iron Chef," one part impromptu comedy routine; my mom is experimenting with venison and elk steaks, and my dad's girlfriend is apparently back on the scene just in time to make this evening's meal edible.
At mum's, I experimented with some Bon Appétit recipes I'd been ogling. My favorite was a three-mushroom and prosciutto stuffing. We also used a recipe for a simple roasted butternut squash with lime, and the consensus hit was the smashed rutabaga with ginger-roasted pear dish - I have a thing for root vegetables.
A single, close family friend joined my mother's table and brought with her a crustless pumpkin pie br?»lée, which turned out better than I expected. A twist on a classic is always refreshing.
For the first time, my family's feast felt like we'd made the holiday our own. And, reluctantly, I have come around to the idea of Thanksgiving, although a day set aside for the purpose of being appreciative still seems unnecessary.
If you want to take them out to dinner, email Winston.Berkman@tufts.edu or Charlotte.Bourdillon@tufts.edu
