Taste With The Eyes: Thanksgiving Day

11.29.2009

Thanksgiving Day

THANKSGIVING DAY

It is one of my greatest pleasures to host

Thanksgiving Dinner

in my home year after year.

Here is my brother Don at the outside bar.

Don, Kristy and the kids travel here to LA from Chicago.

Wendy, Jett, Mom, Stone and Lisa in the backyard.

Wendy is from Scottsdale, Arizona.

Mom lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Lisa is from Germany.

Getting ready to serve dinner, buffet style.

Appetizers are on the counter.

Wendy wrote the menu for me on a platter.

Very artistic!

Lil' Smokies, because everyone likes 'em, especially the kids.

They disappear every year. Haha.

Steve and his son, Kyle

26 Pounder.

My "Do Nothing" recipe for cooking a turkey:
1. Loosely stuff the cavity with roughly chopped onions, carrots, and celery, lots of butter and salt and pepper.
2. Rub the entire outside of the bird with soft butter and salt and pepper.
3. Put more roughly chopped onions, carrots and celery in the bottom of the roasting pan with enough chicken stock so that the pan does not dry out.
4. Roast at 400° for the first 45 minutes, then at 325° for a total of about 5 hours. Lower the heat to 300° if it is cooking too fast. Leave the bird alone, don't baste, don't cover, just "do nothing" and then marvel at the beautiful bird when it reaches 165 degree internal temperature. Use a remote thermometer to monitor the temperature.

5. Remove from oven and let it rest.

6. Have a Skin Party.

I believe the secret is to start with a great turkey. This is a fresh Diestel Turkey Ranch Premium Range Grown Broad Breasted Young Hen Turkey.

Tom makes canned cranberry sauce look gourmet.

I had an idea to make a cranberry gelée, but ran out of time.

Tom improvised for me.

I love it!

Tom's Sushi-style (ahi) Cranberry Gelée.

Getting ready for our tradition: THE SKIN PARTY

I guess that skin-lovers will like this ritual, others may cringe. But hey, this is all family and the best of friends. So we can pick the skin together. Nice crispy skin, help yourself! Don't be shy!

Mom and Chip kick off the Skin Party.

Stone and Don.

I think this is the first time Stone participated in the Skin Party.

Mom, Kyle, Stone, Tom, and Lisa

During the Skin Party, I make the gravy.

Once we finish the Skin Party, Chip carves the turkey. Kyle is stirring the creamed corn and Linda and Tom are heating the mashed potatoes.

Pat's heavenly popovers (my personal favorite).

They are also great for breakfast the next day, with a cup of coffee.

Right, Mom?

Mushroom, Leek, Sage Stuffing

I make it with Ciabatta Bread.

Chip serves gravy to Mom.

The Feast!

Red roses from my garden.

Stone makes the place cards the day before.

Gratitude Sharing

We put a place card at every seat at the table and scatter some pens about. During the beginning of the meal everyone is encouraged to write on their card the things they are grateful for this year. We save these cards so friends and family that have been coming to Thanksgiving at my home now have several cards at their setting. It is fun and poignant and sometimes sad to read what we were grateful for in past years. We read our current card out loud and some from the past. We also cherish the cards that have been written by those who are no longer with us.

Gratitude Old and New

"I am grateful to have two nephews and the opportunity to cook with them."

"I am thankful for everything my parents have done for me."

"I am thankful for all the experiences this year. I thank my family and my best friends for all the support they give me, for spending beautiful days with them and for all the love they give me. And I want to thank Kristy, Don, Stone, and Jett for being part of their family, sharing their American-way-of-life, and for giving me the best year of my life. I love you all. Thank you."

"Here's to a healthy 2010."

"I am thankful for my family and friends. I am also thankful that my college applications are almost done. "

"The freedom we have."

"Good friends."

"Good health and old age."

"Having exciting happy moments, lots of them, with my family."

"I'm grateful for my family and friends."

"I am grateful for my lovely daughter-in-law."

"I'm grateful for my job and my life."

"We are thankful for fresh air from the ocean, good earth to grow vegetables, clean water for seafood, and friends to share with."

"I am thankful right now to be sitting among all these lovely people."

"Great food!"

"Thank you for yesterday, today, and tomorrow."

"I am thankful for God."

"I am thankful for this great opportunity to get to know a different country and new people and to be part of a traditional Thanksgiving in America."

"I am thankful to be able to watch the kids grow."

"I am thankful for the lives we live and all our loving friends and kin."

A Thanksgiving Poem

Thanks to all for being so dear
And I hope to see you again next year.

The same faces have again appeared
Along with some new ones which we cheer.
With our friends and family we remain very close
As we celebrate Thanksgiving
With those we love the most.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Later that night, Tom and Jett with Wilson.

Thanksgiving Day Humor: My brother-in-law once shared with us about a year in the past when he was reluctant to eat the Thanksgiving turkey because there were two necks in the cavity. He assumed it was a two-headed bird.

Julia Child Quotes - TOUJOURS BON APPETIT!

“You should never apologize at the table. People will think, ‘Yes, it’s really not so good.'"

"In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport."

"It's easy to get the feeling that you know the language just because when you order a beer they don't bring you oysters." Paul Child on speaking French

"I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate. "

"Life itself is the proper binge."

"It was a Morsel of Perfection."

"I was in pure, flavorful heaven at the Cordon Bleu."

Julia Child sees herself on TV, July 1962, she saw room for improvement, and still she can say it was fun : "There I was, in black and white, a large woman sloshing eggs too quickly here, too slowly there, gasping, looking at the wrong camera while talking too loudly and so on...But it had been fun."

She has her own opinions on kitchen equipment: "Clairborne sniffed at our use of a garlic press, 'a gadget considered in some circles to be only one cut above garlic salt or garlic powder.' I happened to like garlic presses..."

Understanding Julia's captivation by French food: "This is the kind of food that I have fallen in love with: not trendy souped-up fantasies, just something very good to eat. It was classic French cooking, where the ingredients have been carefully selected and beautifully and knowingly prepared. Or, in the words of the famous gastronome Curnonsky, 'Food that tastes of what it is.' "

"You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made. Even after you eat it, it stays with you - always." Julia's instructor, Chef Bugnard at Le Cordon Bleu

"Oh, 'crise de foie,' that French sole was so delicious!"

Julia's passion comes through loud and clear as she describes a fish dish: "La Truite's true glory was the Sole a la Normande, a poem of poached and flavored sole fillets surrounded by oysters, and mussels, and napped with a wonder-sauce of wine, cream, and butter, and topped with fluted mushrooms. 'Voluptuous' was the word. I had never imagined that fish could be taken so seriously, or taste so heavenly."

Julia's unique way with words, on Crepes Suzette: "The creature named Suzette may or may not have been the mistress of the Prince of Wales, but whoever she was, she long ago inspired a magnificent dessert that is still one of our favorites."

"I am probably one of the few people around who saw the real Caesar Cardini making his salad. I was about 9 when my parents took me to his restaurant in Tijuana. They were so excited when big jolly Caesar himself came to the table to make the salad. And it was dramatic: I remember most clearly the eggs going in, and how he tossed the leaves so it looked like a wave turning over."

"With a handsome package such as Jacques's, you can neatly cut the top open at the table with a pair of scissors..." Julia on Salmon en Papillote

"There's no reason to be intimidated by the idea of making pâté. You can just think of it as meat loaf."

From Julia's dear friend Jacques Pepin, "You are what you cook."

"Understanding egg yolks will make you a master of hollandaise sauce."

Julia encouraging us not to be intimidated: "When you know how to saute your meat so it browns rather than steams, you're cooking. What's difficult about that? You heat the pan, you dry the meat, you don't crowd it into the pan, and you're browning it. Is that difficult?"

Food Quotes

"Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch."

Orson Welles

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

"Chefs, as a whole, say yes to any project, fundraiser, or tasting because they have such a generous spirit."
Charlie Trotter

"Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore. "
Thomas Keller

"I love to make people happy."
Wolfgang Puck

"Fish sauce is to Vietnamese cooking as olive oil is to Italian."

The Little Saigon Cookbook by Ann Le

"I wish, I wish lunch could last forever...waiter, bring us one more bottle of wine..."

Jimmy Buffett

"My philosophy from day one is that I can sleep better at night if I can improve an individual's knowledge about food and wine, and do it on a daily basis."
Emeril Lagasse

"Gordon Ramsay makes me laugh because he knows that I'm not a chef."
Nigella Lawson

"You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook's year. I get more excited by that than anything else."
Mario Batali

"I always knew the importance of it, since I was three or four years old my mother used to feed me wine and water. I grew up with wine as liquid food."
Robert Mondavi

"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at his/her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers."
Laurie Colwin

"Food is a central part of our lives. It provides the body with fuel and raw materials for maintenance, growth, and repair. It draws together family and friends, anchors celebrations and rites of passage, and sometimes soothes the soul."
Ethan Becker