Thanksgiving!

I know many bloggers are out there, piously telling you what they are thankful for today.  That's not my style.  Today, you can be thankful for me.  It's ok.  Allow yourself to bask in my glow.  There's enough to go around. 

And as my gift to you I present a chronology of today's cooking.

We are at my parents' home, and after a big clam chowder meal last night, my body is prepared for the day ahead.

7:42   Wake up.  Stagger for a few minutes during morning preparation. 
7:48   Coffee.  Coffee brings clarity to life. 
7:50   Get the turkey out of the brine, rinse it thoroughly and dry it using paper towels.  Let it stand to continue to air dry. 
8:30   Making the cranberries. 
8:35   Cleaning up the stove where I wasn't paying attention and let the cranberries boil over.  My mom reminds me that nothing stains worse than cranberries. 
9:00   Do the dishes.  This will be repeated 7 or 8 times throughout the day.
10:30 Watch football.  My Fantasy Team is number 2 in the league, but I'm on a losing streak.  I have a rooting interest for several of the Thanksgiving Day games.
11:00 I eat a light lunch.  1 slice of bread, 1 piece of ham, a little cheese and 2 grapes. 
11:35 Start the broth for the stuffing.  Giblets, vegetable parts, apple peels, a little salt, sage, thyme and about 5 cups of water in a pot.
12:15 Assemble the rest of the stuffing. 
1:10   Dress and stuff the turkey. 
1:15   Turkey is in the oven.  It's going to cook for an hour breast-side down at 425 degrees.  Then another 45 minutes at 250 degrees. 
1:20   Help the family decorate the Christmas tree now that they've almost finished it. 
3:00   Flip the turkey breast side up, and admire its beauty.  Cook for another hour at 250 degrees.  Mom and my brother are starting to roll out crescent rolls and cooking the squash for the butternut squash soup. 
3:30   We start to set the table. 
4:00   I turn the heat in the oven back up to 425 degrees.  I take the bird's temperature.  It's about 135 degrees so far.  The race is on.
4:15   The dressing goes into the oven.  The soup is in the pot.  I start the bacon in a frying pan.
4:30   The turkey is out of the oven and is resting, covered.  The bacon is crumbled and the potatoes go into the pot to boil. 
4:45   The brussel sprouts are cleaned, split and in the frying pan. 
4:50   The potatoes get mashed.  All the final prep and meal comes together. 
5:00   We sit down to dinner. 
5:40   We all push away from the table, and the conversation slows to idle chatter. 
6:00   We start with dishes and threats of dessert.

What took days of preparation and hours of production, took only minutes to consume.  We relax and deliberate the condition of young people, these days. 

Please feel free to comment on your family traditions, your meals and recipes and any well-wishes you wish to send. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

For tomorrow's meals, we'll focus on leftovers.  Try:

Thanksgiving Sandwiches
2 slices of a sturdy Multigrain Bread
2 tablespoons Mayo
1 slice of Turkey Breast and a similar amount of Dark Meat
2 tablespoons Cranberry Sauce
1 large leaf of Lettuce
if you're really daring, 1 good spoonful of Stuffing

Assemble into a sandwich.  Eat it.  I like mine with a small dollop of yellow mustard and a few slices of swiss cheese.


Turkey Casserole
2 cups chopped Turkey
2 cups Stuffing
2 cups Green Beans or Mixed Vegetables
1 1/2 cups Turkey Gravy
Mashed Potatoes

In a large bowl, mix together the turkey, stuffing, vegetables and gravy.  Spread evenly into a casserole dish and top with a 1/2 inch layer of mashed potatoes.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until the gravy is bubbling and the potatoes are turning golden brown at the peaks. 


Cranberry Shortcakes
2 cups Cranberry Sauce
1 cup Sugar
6 Shortcakes (I like drop biscuits using half and half instead of milk and doubling the sugar)
1 scoop Whipped Cream

In a sauce pot over medium heat, add the cranberry sauce and the sugar.  Heat until the sugar melts and the sauce bubbles. 

Refrigerate until cool.

Heat the shortcakes, and split them open.  Spoon a generous helping of cranberries inside, and put the top of the cake back on.  Spoon another spoonful of berries on top, and add a scoop of whipped cream. 

The Thanksgiving Ritual

"My doctor asked, 'How soon into a meal do you typically stop eating and feel full?' I don't stop eating when I'm full. The meal's not over when I feel full. The meal is over when I hate myself. That's when I stop." -- Louis CK

Our family celebrates Thanksgiving like no other holiday.  Consider: my Mom's prodigious cooking, my love for the finest flavors, and my family's passion for . . . well,  . . .  gluttony.  So much so, that my brothers and I participate in a little (un)healthy competition around the holiday. 

As I may have alluded to in a previous post, we start gorging the week of Thanksgiving.  On Monday, I try to eat an extra meal.  Pre-Brunch, if you will.  Or maybe a Pre-Dinner.  Or even an Apres-Dessert.  Tuesday, I'll work on an extra meal and maybe extra helpings during each meal.  On Wednesday, I don't think I'm ever without food.  My brothers participate in a similar routine, the goal being stretching the stomach to its largest and most unhealthy capacity.  Then we fast the day of Thanksgiving so that we are nearly starving and feel completely hollow by the time we eat The Big Meal.  Like bears gorging themselves before hibernation, we maximize our caloric intake and then rest comfortably.  Americans created another ritual to aid in the rest and relaxation post-The Big Meal: The Detroit Lions Football Game. 

But my side of the family traditionally also celebrates Christmas during the Thanksgiving holiday.  The Christmas tree is put up, the ornaments come out, the Rat Pack serenades us with holiday carols.  Nog may be consumed.  Gifts will also be exchanged.  We started combining holidays years ago when marriages pulled us in different directions during November and December.  So we invented Christgiving.  Or Thanksmas.   Which is also cool, because we get our Christmas shopping done early.    

I'll report back after the holiday, and let you know how it turned out.  In the mean time, here's a few recipes I'm working on for The Big Meal. 

Cranberries with Raspberries and Cardamom
1 package whole, fresh Cranberries
2 cups Raspberries (fresh or frozen)
1 cup Sugar
Zest of 1 Orange
pinch of Salt
Water
1/4 cup Triple Sec
6 whole Green Cardamom pods

Rinse and pick out the bad fruit.  Add the fruit, sugar, zest and salt to a medium sauce pan with enough water to come up 1/2 inch below the top of the fruit.  Bring to a boil, stirring frequently and then reduce to a simmer.  Add the Triple Sec and cardamom pods and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries split open and the liquid is reduced to a thin syrup. 

Refrigerate over night. 

Stuffed Turkey
The art of cooking a stuffed turkey, that isn't too dry, but isn't undercooked, either, eludes most kitchen enthusiasts.  The secret is patience.  And a lot of heat at the right time.  And the brine!
The night before, soak the bird in a brine of your choosing.  Essentially, the brine is a high salt content dissolved in water.  There may be additional flavors.  I like adding lightly crushed allspice, a little sugar in the form of apple cider, or in this case a dark porter beer.  Three hours before cooking, remove the bird from the brine and rinse it thoroughly.  Using paper towels pat it dry, and then let it completely air-dry. (This will help the skin get extra crispy.) 


Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.  Dress the skin of the bird however you like--I usually just sprinkle a little salt and pepper over it, inside and out.  Heat the stuffing in the microwave until it's about 300 degrees.  Quickly stuff the bird's neck and body cavities, and then finish trussing the bird, lay it on a rack, breast-side down, and get it into the oven. 


Reduce the heat to 450 degrees and cook for an hour.  Baste the back in its juices, and then flip the bird, breast-side up.  Put the bird back into the oven, reduce the heat to 250 degrees and cook for 2 hours.  The breast and thigh meat should be about 135 degrees by this time.  Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees and cook until the breast temperature is 160 degrees and the meat between the thigh and body is reading about 165- 170 degrees.  (The stuffing in the center of the bird will also be about 160 degrees.)  Remove from the oven and cover with tinfoil.  Let rest for 20 minutes before carving.


Autumn Stuffing
1/2 cup Walnut meat, lightly crushed
3/4 cup Onions, chopped
3/4 cup Celery, chopped (include the leaves!)
3/4 cup Apples, peeled and chopped (Granny Smiths or other baking apple)
2-4 cups Turkey Stock
1/2 cup melted Butter
2 tablespoons Kosher Salt
1 tablespoon ground Black Pepper
1 cup fresh forest mushrooms (I like Chanterelles or Morels)
4 cups Dried Bread, chopped into 1 inch cubes (we use the end pieces or stale artisan bread that we have been collecting for the past several months in the freezer)
cooked and chopped Giblets (optional, but I like them)


In a very large bowl, mix all the ingredients except for the stock.  Slowly add the stock until the bread starts to take on a little moisture, about 1 1/2 to 2 cups.  Seperate out about 1/2 the stuffing to put into the bird.  Follow the directions, above.

Add a bit more stock to the remaining stuffing until it gains the consistency you enjoy.  Move to a baking dish.  Bake in a 350 degree oven, covered for 30 minutes and 5 minutes uncovered.  Serve hot.

The Circle of Life, and All That

This was a meat-inspired week.  And I want to bring honor back to the word "butcher." 

Since returning from our rather unsuccessful hunting trip (*gasp!*  We'll have to buy our own red meat this year.  Read on for a plan), I've been running into meats of all sorts in all sorts of places. 

I've often said that if I wasn't a financial advisor, I would want to be a butcher.  For some, this is the most horrible thing in the world.  Akin to murder.  I challenge that line of thinking on an evolutionary basis.  Consider for the moment the human mouth.  Our tongue not only seeks out those things that provide a wide range of nutritional benefit, but our teeth and jaw alignment is perfectly suited to grind up a wide range of foods.  We have evidence of our earliest ancestors hunting and butchering animals at the dawn of the Stone Age, about 2.5 million years ago.  At that time, our teeth and jaws were much more like a chimpanzee's--sharper, pointed teeth up front, molars in the back in a longer narrower jaw hinged deeply in the skull and attached to massive jaw muscles.  Our palates have grown wider and shorter, and while some evolutionary theorists believe that forks, knives and cooking have made us weaker, I like to think of us as more refined.  We still have sharper, tearing teeth placed up front so that we can remove large bites, and broad molars for grinding and mashing.  Even our saliva is attuned to pre-digesting the essential proteins found in meat. 

But there is more than evolution at play in my admiration of butchery.  In much the same way Da Vinci explored the human figure examining musculature beneath the skin, a butcher knows his or her way around a carcass and creates an artform of separating different masses of muscle from bone.

The Denver Contemporary Art Museum hosted a a week-long art project called Art Meets Beast. Among other elements and events, Jimmy "The Butcher" Cross dissected a half a bison in roughly 2 hours. To put this feat of mastery into perspective, my Dad and I (who have a collective 80 years of experience in butchering our own meat) take 4 hours to butcher a deer, which is about half the mass of half-a-bison. Jimmy's knife (a 6 inch Boner) danced in and out and between bones like Gene Kelly weaving around light poles and umbrellas.  (By the way--there was SUPPOSED to be the music of Buffalo Springfield on the flugelhorn.  I heard no Buffalo Springfield and no flugelhorn.  Roger Green played "Home on the Range" on electric guitar as background music for the butchering workshop, however.)  Peter Marczyk of Marczyk Fine Foods (where Jimmy performs his craft) provided running commentary during the demonstration and expounded on the nature of bison, the butchering process and artform, the rise of American interest in knowing where our food comes from, and the lament that all too often, demand for particular cuts of meat (tenderloin, rib eyes, etc.) drive the price up for a whole animal and changes the marketability of beef, pork and bison in general.   I plan to buy a whole bison to split with my Dad in lieu of the elk we didn't get. 

This week, I also took the time to swing by and see my friends at Il Mondo Vecchio.  Walking through the doors on Loading Dock Friday, continues to bring a smile to my face.  The inviting fragrance of spices and curing meat promise a reward for the palate as well.  And certainly, I'm always excited to hear what's new and upcoming, and exchange recipe ideas.  Gennaro, dressed handsomely and incongruously in a dark suit and a tie, greeted us at the door and showed us around the facility.  He walked us through the curing process and then introduced the samples layed out for us to try.   Hot Coppa, Longanzia, Cured Duck, Beef Bresaola, Vino e Pepe Nero.  I picked up a half pound of Bresaola for my friend and a little of my favorite pork product, and a half pound of Duck Lardo.  On the way out Mark DiNittis was coming back into the shop. We discussed recipes, meats, and love of the craft.  He also let drop that he's going to be featured in a new book, Primal Cuts: Cooking with America's Best Butchers.  The dude is a rockstar. 

I took the Bresaola to Highland Tap and Burger and my buddy Eli, the executive chef there.  He creates a fusion of beer and meat products.  He'll sample the Bresaola in the cheese platter with homemade mostardo and a whole-grain ale mustard.  The nice guy gave me beer for the trouble.  And next week I'll introduce him personally to Il Mondo Vecchio.

If you're not already a committed vegetarian, I applaud you. You know the joys of well prepared meats and the majesty inherent in the noble beast.   If you are a vegetarian, I applaud you too.  You get a golf clap.  Way to stay committed to your principles.

Tonight for dinner:

Awesome Osso Buco
Instead of shanks, you can also use neck bones, tail bones or other less favorable cuts of meat.  Good Osso Buco is about the deep meaty flavor.
1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
2-4 Beef Shanks (about 3 pounds)
2-4 Lamb Shanks (about 1 pound)
Kosher Salt
1 medium Onion, chopped
2 medium Carrots, peeled and chopped
1 stalk Celery, chopped
1 tablespoon Tomato Paste
1 cup good Dry Red Wine
2 1/2 cups Vegetable Broth (or Chicken or Beef)
1 sprig Rosemary
3-4 sprigs Thyme
1 Bay Leaf
4 whole Cloves
12 whole Black Peppercorns

For a prettier presentation, use butcher's twine to tie the meat onto the bone.  Lightly and evenly sprinkle salt on the shanks.  Let stand on end to dry.

 In a large dutch oven (cast iron is great) heat the oil until smoking and lay in the shanks.  Brown them on all sides.  Reduce the heat to medium high and add the onion, celery and carrots.  Sprinkle on the 1 teaspoon of the salt.  Stir until the onion begins to turn translucent and then add the wine and tomato paste.  Stir gently until the paste dissolves.  Add the broth (I prefer vegetable because it's not as heavy and over powering).  Place the rosemary, thyme, cloves, black peppercorns, and bay leaf in a satchel of cheesecloth.  Add to the broth. 

Cover and let come to a boil.  Reduce the heat and let simmer for 1 1/2 hours.  Check now and then, making sure the liquid isn't boiling off too quickly.  add more broth if needed.  Using tongs, gently turn the shanks making sure that each part gets the liquid love it deserves. 

Remove the shanks to serving platter.  Discard the cheesecloth.  Ladle on the broth and vegetables.  Add fresh thyme and rosemary as a garnish.  Serve with crusty artisan bread.