Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 22, 2012.
As Much Food As Ever, Fewer Celebrants.
Up at a quarter to seven. The single turkey was a little bigger than average--about fifteen pounds--but it was completely thawed last night when I put it into the brine. While waiting for the fire in the Big Green Egg to get rolling, I hosed it off in the sink, stuffed the cavity with oranges, celery, onions, and rosemary from the garden.
Then I remembered something Carolise Rosen told me a few years ago. She said that she made a bourbon butter for her turkey. I didn't ask what she did with it, but I assumed that it was rubbed all over (and under) the skin. Which I did. That will be the new wrinkle for this year's turkey, which cooked in record time and came out great.
One other change from the norm: no sugar cane for smoking the turkey. I usually pick up all I need while I'm at Manresa. But my retreat comes after Thanksgiving this year. My smoke generator would be old oak branches that fell off the local trees. (I wish I had any pecan trees.)
The usual tension in the kitchen started early. Last night, or maybe the night before. But Mary Ann gave herself too big a cleanup assignment. The only thing worse than an undone major cleanup is a a halfway-done one.
On top of that, her menu of side dishes was completely over the top. I saw her boil pasta four times for what will be a magnificent hillock of macaroni and cheese. She also worked on a hash of brussels sprouts and turnips. I wish she'd ask me about these things, so I could tell her that the differences in cooking times between those two vegetables is so great that her attempt to roast them in the oven was doomed. If I volunteer facts like that, it only makes things worse. So I can only watch.
The oyster dishes she wanted me to make proved impossible. First, she wanted the three dishes on a colorful plate that wouldn't be big enough to serve three things at one time. Second, she kept taking ingredients bought for my projected dishes, making them impossible.
But that all worked out well. I had Italian sausage, a stale loaf of challah bread, lots of garlic and olive oil, parmesan cheese, a half-gallon of oysters and another half-gallon of oyster water that I had been reducing all morning. What came out of this was a dish kind of like oysters Mosca, but with the added weight and flavor of the crumbled, pre-cooked Italian sausage. I made one after another in gratin dishes, and passed them to the guests as they arrived. We ran though almost all of them just in time for the ham and turkey.
As always, we had far too much food for the fourteen people who joined us. But through some miracle, we didn't have an enormous pile of leftovers. By the time it started getting dark, almost everybody had asked for various items packed to go. Ruth Ann, who plays the piano at Redemption, took both turkey wings with our blessing. Dr. Brian Connell DDS took a lot of the macaroni and cheese and other things. Chunks of ham and slices of cheesecake went to new homes.
It turned out to be a lovely gathering. The weather was perfect. The people mingled well. (Except Mary Leigh, who was the only person here of her age, her many contemporary cousins off at different feasts.)
A few miscellaneous facts:
1. We had a net loss of two bottles of wine. We opened eight, but several people brought bottles.
2. The cheeses my sister Lynn brought from St. James Cheese Company were wonderful, especially the one that looked like an overripe Brie. You eat it with a spoon.
3. Jude called from Los Angeles, where he was having Thanksgiving with the family of his lady love. He made my cheesecake recipe for them, and showed it to us on Skype. It was a twin of the one I made.
4. Mary Leigh--my ham's biggest fan--said that this year's was the best ever. (And she would say if she thought otherwise.)
5. Ruth Ann played a few tunes for us on our old piano. She reported that at least eight of the keys make no sound when touched.
6. This may be our last Thanksgiving as hosts, Mary Ann says. But she says that every year.
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