THANKSGIVING DINNER 2019

COOKING WITH FRIENDS

One might have thought that the Wednesday night Thanksgiving ham with cheddar and sage biscuits would have been enough to deplete the resolve of a normal set of amateur chefs bent on preparing another huge meal - not this crowd. The only thing to diminish was the number of chairs to go around the table. This time we were only cooking for our small group of ten.

The meal's prep meeting began by fortifying the troupes with a quick breakfast of leftover ham and biscuit sandwiches, a review of the prep logbook and divvying up of oven time. We had gone as far as purchasing a coutertop oven so Adam's Apple pies wouldn't have to fight for baking time with his wife JoHannah's cornbread dressing.  I was given yet another shopping list which was most likely to keep me out of the kitchen.  It wouldn't be my last grocery trip of the day.  I think I became aware of their concern about my cooking skills when they sent me out for a packet of cheesecloth knowing it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack, therefore  keeping me busy and out of the kitchen for a lengthy period of time.
Unlike most of our home chefs I don't have a signature dish. There's no Lee's rustic green beans or Lee's salted caramel cheesecake, but there is JoHannah's Bourbon pecan pie, Susan's fennel tarts, Jim's potatoes Anna, Randy's Whiskey punch, Adam's spiced apple pie and Rick's balsamic poached figs. I've already admitted I'm not a cook which leads me to admit I'm an even worse food writer, so from here on everything food related will be in the words of someone with much more knowledge on all things culinary. Rick is going to be the food guide from here on out.
Take it away Rick:

Frankly most of our group prefer the white meat of the traditional turkey so it had been decided earlier to abandon the convention of a roasted whole turkey for a nice plump turkey breast.  After being brined overnight, the roasting of the partial bird followed my usual method of covering it with a sheath of butter and wine soaked cheesecloth (Lee did find the cheesecloth but it did keep him away for just the right amount of time), launching the partial bird into a blazing hot oven, immediately reducing the heat to 375 degrees and then regularly basting the breast with a bath of the butter and wine mixture.

Lee's note: Not a fan of turkey but Rick's method produces a juicy flavorful mouth-watering hunka, hunk of burning bird.

In the early eighties while attending Peter Kump's New York Cooking School I learned to make Pommes Anna or as we Americans call it Potatoes Anna.  It is a painstaking process requiring thinly slicing several pounds of Russet potatoes, layering the potatoes into a beautiful nautilus spiral then adding a layer of sweet butter and repeating the layering until the potatoes reach the rim of the iron skillet. C'mon it's Thanksgiving, to hell with the calories!  I have long since abandoned this dish after teaching our good friend Jim the recipe and it is one he has mastered and one we can count on every Thanksgiving.

I have known my friends JoHannah and Susan longer than I can count and we have celebrated Thanksgiving intermittently over the past forty odd years.  Susan makes a mean fennel and olive tart that I think is her own recipe and if not it is one she has certainly perfected.

All I know is that it requires cooking down red onions and fennel in a ton of butter, pouring it into a tart pan, topped with pitted Kalamata olives and baked to a golden perfection.
Lee's note: I went back over the grocery receipts and found twelve pounds of butter bought and paid for and no longer in our refrigerator.

Besides her fabulously delicious cornbread stuffing JoHannah improvised her cranberry sauce this year with candied ginger and a splash of gin. Yum!  I hope she continues these additions in the future.

Besides this spectacular condiment JoHannah has always contributed pecan pie to the dessert table and it is my favorite holiday sweet treat.  As a good Southern gal her secret to this confection is the addition of bourbon. Of course!

Lee insists on poached figs for all of our holiday meals.  Slowly steeped in a good quality balsamic vinegar, with a spice and herb combination of rosemary, orange peel, allspice, juniper berries, bay leaves and sugar.  After poaching and cooling the figs they are poured into a glass container and refrigerated.  They last us through the holiday season if we're lucky.  The real trick here is finding fresh figs in November!

Now JoHannah's husband Adam is the pastry master. Whether used for sweet or savory pies and tarts he makes all the pastry dough. Once all the dough is prepared Adam makes at least two of his particular and utterly delicious apple pies.  The recipe seems to change year to year according to his imaginative culinary embellishments.

Over the years we have been treated to the wonderful additions of raisins or dried currents, some sort of citrus zest or peel whether orange, lemon or lime and I seem to remember once there were nuts.  This year's fabulous fantasy was the amalgam of blackberries.  Delish!

Randy, Susan's husband, can wax poetic on the joys of libations of all kinds.  Now he is certainly not a candidate for Betty Ford but he does enjoy exploring the world of potable wines and spirits.  This year Randy imported whiskey and moonshine from Atlanta and its surrounds to mix two different and utterly delicious punches.  I have never been a whiskey or dark liquor drinker so I know little about these concoctions but what I do remember is that one incorporated iced tea, the house wine of the South and the other peach cider.

All in all Randy managed to raise several common lowly Appalachian ingredients to the heights of a festive holiday brew fit for royals.
Lee's note: Randy was also in charge of keeping the liquor cabinet stocked for the holiday. Although I may have occupied first place in the number of trips to the market Randy was a very close second visiting the liquor aisles collecting an assortment of gins, bourbons and whiskeys. In the short time he was there he attained the distinction of being on a first name bases with the checkout clerks, a high honor indeed! 

Before I turn the keyboard back over to Lee I have to fess up, well my dear sweet friend Susan forced my hand here.  It was Susan who at some point during all our cooking outed me for my Tom Sawyer method of meal preparation.  It is true I do have a sneaky way of enlisting the help of my friends by asking for assistance and then abandoning them altogether, moving on to the next task only to turn it over to my next accomplice.  Susan coined the phrase "Getting Ricked" to describe this method of assembling a meal and I'm going to have to own it! Thanks Susan!

While all the food was being prepped it was Emmy's job to set the table and it required the same attention to detail.  The task included choosing which dinner plates to use, selecting the correct cutlery and pairing those with the appropriate stemware, all with the meals menu in mind.  Then what to do with flowers?

Emmy settled on tabletop ware by Dan Levy, flatware from Patino and Wolf and vintage stemware.  As for flowers,  arrangements of a series of small vases allowing for cross table conversation and finally a scattering of rose petals for color.

Around six in the evening we all, well they all, dropped their aprons and then we put on our Thanksgiving best. There wasn't a dish that disappointed but even the best food couldn't top the knowledge that if we don't see each other for months or years we'll take up again just where we left off...old friends who can cook a mean Thanksgiving dinner.

THE WEDNESDAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING HAM & BISCUIT FETE

NEW TRADITIONS

Over the years we as a family have had traditions that have come and gone replaced by the dynamic of a changing family and a home base that has moved throughout the entire North American continent. Whereas our roots have been dug up and replanted in place after place we now seem to have come full circle, at least for me.

We've now been back in the home of my teenage years for over a decade, a home my parents built. Since moving back we worked hard to turn the house from the home of my parents to a place that now carries our footprint. With this we've moved beyond the traditions of my parents and set up a new vocabulary for our holidays.  Thanksgiving has become a moveable feast happening bi-annually at our home and shifting to San Francisco on the alternating years. Thanksgiving now involves not just the Thursday of Thanksgiving but is extended into a weeklong occasion with houseguests, friends and family. It all commences the weekend before with trips to the local airports in Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago to transport incoming guests, their luggage and non-liquid food products back to our house.

The house transforms into a B&B for the week with every nook and cranny becoming a place for someone to sleep. Even the bar doubles as a makeshift bedroom.

Once everyone has found a place to store their luggage it's time to begin the hunting and gathering process. Food shopping is high on the list requiring dozens of trips to local food purveyors and specialty shops even though the menus have been developed weeks in advance.

Then there's the alcohol, plenty of Cabernets, Brunellos, Tito's vodka, and Jack.

Simple meals are put together on the days leading up to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with meals like Danny Kaye's lemon chicken pasta, Bloody Mary's and a pizza party from Buck's Pizza, a Madison staple for decades.

Up to this point everything is on a spur of the moment basis with an inventory of the refrigerator calculated and a dash to the takeout menu box.  But it is all a prelude leading up to a tradition we've woven into the fabric of our holiday for a growing amount of years, the Wednesday evening glazed ham with cheddar & sage biscuits buffet.

A full cooked whole bone-in smoked ham is scored, smothered in Dijon mustard and studded with cloves. The ham is then baked and basted every twenty minutes for three hours with a mixture of apple cider, dark brown sugar, maple syrup and a little more mustard until the skin splits and turns a dark juicy brown.

The biscuits are from Rick's recipe with the dough prepared the day before. He combines flour (it must be the White Lily brand, a southern favorite and the flour Rick's Granny Shaver always used) with both butter and a bit of Crisco shortening infused with fresh and ground sage and finally grated cheddar cheese. They don't go into the oven until the ham has come out so they can be served warm.

We invite family and friends in addition to our houseguests for our Wednesday evening informal fete. Everyone staying at the house has an assignment. Their hands and culinary skills are now an integral part in planning the menu.

Randy's whiskey punch was ladled out of ceramic terrine and served alongside a dozen different Italian and regional wines.

Susan and JoHannah competed with skillet cakes, one made with caramelized apples and topped with a sea salt caramel icing and the other made with three kinds of ginger, ground, freshly grated and candied.

Our daughter Emmy worked her magic with the flowers with an enormous amount of help from Susan.  Every room had a signature bouquet with lush blush roses, miniature hydrangeas and seasonal berries.

This is how the pounds abound on the beginning of the Thanksgiving holiday at the Shaver/Melahn home. Next the real meal with all the stops pulled out as everyone labors to beat their signature dishes from the year before.