Thanksgiving

I have always been a big proponent of deep-frying a turkey. It has been, until now, the juiciest turkey I have ever made. However, the biggest turn-off of the whole deep-frying process is the $50 of oil you need to buy and then have to dispose of...it's kind-of-a-pain and always feels like a big waste.

However, there is nothing better than not tying up the oven on Thanksgiving Day with a turkey that needs four hours to cook. Therefore, deep-frying the turkey continued for a few years until I just couldn't get myself to buy those large vats of oil anymore. So the turkey made it's way back to my indoor oven and last year I did make one of the most delicious turkey's ever.

But, over the past year I kept seeing this Char-Broil The Big Easy Electric TRU Infrared Smoker and Roaster everywhere I went. Mostly at large warehouse stores like Lowe's. Seeing it so many times wore me down and I finally decided to buy one. It was a sign, right? I wanted to get the turkey cooking back outside where it belongs. This way the oven is reserved for all the beloved side dishes. Good idea? Yes. I thought so too.

This past weekend I finally fired it up to give it a test run. It requires a 30-minute seasoning cycle before using, which was not a big deal to complete.

I wanted to make a "no-frills" recipe. No exotic rubs and/or seasonings. No brining (which I always do). And no expensive free-range, local, special-fed, gobbles in seven languages turkey. I wanted to see what this machine could do on its own with a simple, frozen Butterball, rubbed in peanut oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. That's it. The results were kind of astonishing.

2 golden delicious apples chopped (2 1/2 cups)
1½ cups cranberries, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 medium onion, minced
1 tablespoon crystalized ginger
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Mix all ingredients in medium saucepan.  Bring to boil. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally until apples tender and most liquid absorbed (about 30 minutes).

Cool to room temperature. Jar, and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

From the International Herald Tribune

Suppose I told you that with your turkey, your stuffing, your cranberry sauce, and all the delicious side dishes that will grace your holiday table, one wine and one wine only would match up. Unless you pick that one wine you face the specter of horrible embarrassment. Sound ridiculous? Well, of course it is. Yet more people than I care to think about feel exactly this way when selecting Thanksgiving wines.

Choosing the wine for any occasion is well known as an exercise in agony. Thanksgiving, for some reason, fills people with an extra dimension of dread. Perhaps it's the idea of performing for one's loving family, always so ready to heap scorn for your benefit. Or maybe there's secret pleasure in being squashed in the paralyzing spotlight, dancing, as Tom Lehrer once put it, to "The Masochism Tango."

If the prospect of shame and disgrace is a welcome part of your holiday ritual, by all means enjoy the feeling. But I would be remiss not to point out that it's all so unnecessary! Picking a wine should never be an occasion for self-flagellation, and at Thanksgiving least of all. The meal itself is typically a riot of contrasts - the savory stuffing, the sweetness of yams, the blank slate of the turkey - and wide open to individual eccentricities like marshmallows, almond slivers and the like. The wine selection task couldn't be simpler: versatility and plenitude.

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Even more than Thanksgiving, the day after is nostalgia squared, or maybe cubed. Memories rush back from the day before. The turkey. The perfect pies. Seeing loved ones, yet missing absent ones, and being thankful to have both. But now, layered on top, is a day of leftovers that are often better the day before.

My morning after: stuffing in a circle in a skillet with sunny side ups in the center, a piece of pie before that gets under way, freshly made strawberry raspberry jam and angel biscuits.

This year I’m making homemade butter—crunchy maple butter— to serve with them, and I’m sharing the recipe with you ahead of time so you see how quick and easy it is to make. And the flavor is definitely butter squared. Or maybe cubed.

All you need is to pour 3 pints of organic heavy cream in a stand mixer and begin to whip as if you are making whipped cream.
A man in one of my cooking classes asked me, ” How do you make butter?!”

I answered, “Do you remember anyone warning you that if you whipped cream too much it would turn into butter?”