Ah, Thanksgiving...

Ah, Thanksgiving--a day dedicated to food, family, and the annual tradition of Uncle Jim reading just one more headline about politics on his phone before someone “accidentally” unplugs the Wi-Fi. 

It’s a brutiful blend of burnt rolls, mismatched tables and chairs, and the eternal debate over whether cranberry sauce should jiggle like a gelatinous can shaped cylinder or have real berries and reside in a crystal dish.

Naturally, there’s always that one guest who arrives three hours early “to help” but spends the whole time narrating their latest health drama--with photos if you're lucky. Meanwhile, the kids are either reenacting an MMA match in the living room/octagon or covertly feeding their green beans to the dog, who is now visibly regretting his life choices and lack of turkey.

The kitchen is its own battlefield, where General Grandma is whisper-shouting about her secret stuffing recipe (which everyone knows is just Stove Top that's been zhuzhed with extra sage), and someone’s trying to “fix” the gravy with copious amounts of wine--and not in the pot.

But despite the mayhem, it’s a day we wouldn’t trade for anything--because every laugh, eye roll, and second helping is a reminder of what family and friends are: gloriously imperfect, endlessly entertaining, and the best thing to be thankful for--just as we are thankful for you, dear Readers. 

From all of the Reds to all of you, Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Over the River and Through the Woods... We Hope

Congratulations to MAREN, winner of a copy of Maddie Day's DEADLY CRUSH! (Maren, contact Edith@Edithmaxwell.com to tell her where to send your book.)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It’s five days before Thanksgiving, and while some of us are polishing silver and calculating how many pounds of turkey per guest, many of us are checking the oil or packing our carry-ons in anticipation of the dreaded Journey to Thanksgiving. 

Obviously, it’s not always dreaded. When we got out of the Army and moved back to my mom’s native New York, we always spent the holiday at my Aunt and Uncle’s home outside Utica. It was about an hours’ drive, literally over the river and through the woods, and even in the upstate NY snow belt, it wasn’t usually coming down too hard at the end of November. At the conclusion of the trip, the promise of good food and wine (for the adults) and visiting the neighbor's horses (for the kids) was well worth the effort. 

 

Moving to DC for grad school threw a wrench into that easy jaunt. I had to fly if I was going to make it home and still get back to class the next Monday. This was the dawn of low-fare airlines in the US, and I spent one miserable day-before-Thanksgiving trying to bushwhack my way through the transportation system with my new-ish boyfriend, a law student named Ross Hugo-Vidal. 

 

We took the MARC train from Washington to BWI Airport for our flight on People's Express (anyone remember them?) But, alas, it was one of those years when it was snowing like mad in Syracuse, and we got stuck in the brand-new Newark airport. The People's Express terminal was still unfinished, and had no chairs. We spent hours alternating sitting on our luggage, and on the chilly floor. There were no cell phones in those days, children, so we had to make regular visits to the help desk to beg for news. 

 

Eventually, we were herded onto a plane bound for Rochester (where it was also snowing.) Only an hour and twenty minutes away from home! Except by the time we arrived, it was close to midnight, all the services were shutting down, and the weather was worsening. We split up - I stood in line to get a hotel voucher from the airline's customer service, and Ross ran to the Avis desk and rented one of the last cars available.

 

The next morning, the storm had passed and he drove us to my folk's place. My mom always said take a challenging trip with someone you're serious about; it shows if they have the right stuff to be a good partner. It did, and he was, and I married him eighteen months later.

 

 

As parents ourselves, we fell into a three-year rhythm: One year hosting, the second with local friends, and the third trekking down to DC to join the family there. I just checked with Google Maps, and it tells me the average driving time between my house and my sister's is 8 hours 40 minutes to 11 hours 50 minutes. Friends, this is a foul lie. We never made the drive in less than 13 hours, and on several occasions it took up to 16 hours.  

There was the year it rained so torrentially in the Philadelphia area the NJ Turnpike closed down and we had to figure out how to navigate local surface roads, via maps and following the unending stream of traffic. Did I mention the NJ streets were also flooding?

 

There were two separate occasions of an overwrought teen leaping out of the car at a stop and refusing to get back in. There was the time we were staying at a hotel instead of at Barb's and while trying to navigate there, I accidentally drove through the Pentagon parking lot. Late at night. The Pentagon police who stopped me were very sweet.

There was a year when there was a cattle truck accident on Interstate 95, and the traffic was so backed up we didn't arrive in Northampton, to drop Victoria at her college, until 3am. We spent $250 for a hotel room we used for five hours. 

This Thanksgiving, I'm journeying again to DC, but this time, solo, and flying (something financially out of reach for a family of five.) I'm also hedging my bets by leaving on Tuesday morning and returning on Friday night. I look forward to smiling down at the traffic along the way. Unless, of course, there's snow...

Dear readers, what are your memorable Thanksgiving journeys?

Turkey with a side of...?

JENN McKINLAY: This time last year, I was in Ireland (research!) and it was fascinating because as they were taking down the Halloween/Samhain decorations, they were popping up the Christmas ones. I know retail stores are now doing Halloween-Christmas mashup displays that start in July  (good grief!) but this was private residences and whatnot. Of course, I realized after a beat, that they don’t have Thanksgiving in Ireland so of course they can roll right into Christmas. It made me actually appreciate Turkey day as the stop gap it is.

For some inexplicable reason, I volunteered to host Thanksgiving dinner this year. Hub is cooking so that technically leaves me with cleaning and baking duty, which is not a hardship but given that the Hub’s definition of cooking is meat – just meat – well, I suspect I’m going to have to produce some side dishes.

So, I implore you, Reds, what are your favorite Thanksgiving sides? I need the next three weeks to practice if we’re really doing this, which apparently, we are. 

HALLIE EPHRON: My favorite side from growing up was a sweet potato and apple casserole. Sadly I have never been able to reproduce it so I post a plea, just in case any of our readers have a recipe! It was layers of sweet potato and apple slices, layered with something like brown sugar and butter. There must have been some liquid …I’d have guessed apple juice. Or water. But I’ve failed miserably trying to make it, figuring out what the proportions are to make the potatoes and apples absorb the liquid and congeal into a delicious sweet gluey hunk. Anyone??

JENN: This sounds amazing!

RHYS BOWEN:  we are having a big celebration for John’s birthday at the same time as Thanksgiving, renting a huge house in Paradise Valley and thus I’ll be cooking for 16 (actually I’ll be overseeing. I’ll have help) Among those 16 are gluten, lactose, vegan challenges!

We always have to have the green bean casserole for my son in law but my son Dominic has promised to make it with real beans, mushrooms and coconut milk so that our lactose intolerants can eat it. Clare will make gluten free stuffing. The stuffing is my favorite dish. Lots of onion and sausage and herbs in the non vegan one!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I also have a lactose-intolerant guest, and very frequently either vegetarians or vegans as well, Rhys. A standard for the vegetarians has been a couple of quiches: fairly quick and easy to make, and everyone likes them. One year I made a vegan version (using egg substitute and fake cheese from Trader Joe’s) that was a smash with the meat eaters as well!

As for sides, Jenn, I like ones that can be made a day or more ahead. Coleslaw would be great, considering your warmer temperatures, and maple baked beans (very New England) can cook and be reheated in the crockpot. If I’m not prepping them ahead of time, they need to be quick and easy - mashed potatoes, canned cranberries with some spices and mandarin oranges stirred in, good store-bought buns. 

We’ll be skipping it this Thanksgiving, as I’ll have TWO sober kids there (my son is four months and counting!) but in the old days when we used to host a crowd, I liked to make a punch instead of offering cocktails when guests arrive. Everyone can help themselves, and you can also do it as a non-alcoholic base with a bottle of rum/tequila/gin on the side.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: One, mashed potatoes. You can make them in advance, and put them in the fridge. To reconstitute,  put in a baking dish, dot with butter, cover and heat at 350 for 30 mins. DELICIOUS. Add chives or bacon bits.

Same with mashed sweet potatoes. WIth just salt  and pepper and butter, I don’t gussy them up with sugary stuff.

Green beans. Cook in advance until almost done, blanch, wrap in paper towels, refrigerate. Day of, throw more butter in a frying pan, saute quickly, add slivered almonds and s & p, go.

Stuffing. SO EASY. Follow the instructions on the Pepperidge Farm stuffing package. I usually saute onions and celery first, then do the rest. DELICIOUS. You can also make in advance, put in a baking dish, and reheat with the potatoes.

Oh, cranberries. Buy a package of Ocean Spray. Follow the directions. Add zested orange rind. You can make this in advance, too, and it’s much better.

THE GRAVY IS THE HARDEST PART. We’ll talk.

Backtime the turkey, but it can rest an hour. 

BE SURE TO TAKE THE GIBLETS AND STUFF OUT OF THE TURKEY.

Get fresh parsley for garnishing everything.

Oh. Make sure your turkey pan fits in the oven WITH the turkey. Seriously. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: My absolutely favorite side is my own homemade cranberry relish, so I will make this even if I'm not cooking anything else. Next up is my daughter's roasted Brussel sprouts. I don't cook Brussels, because Rick doesn't like them, so they are a real treat for me. Kayti roasts them with lots of olive oil and flaky sea salt until they are starting to get crispy and caramelized, then once out of the oven, drizzles them with a little balsamic vinegar. So yummy, and good for vegetarians, too.

We make dressing, not stuffing, so cornbread is an essential, although I usually use half cornbread (homemade!) and half a good country wheat. Lots of celery and onions sauteed in butter (it's Thanksgiving!), then mixed with the dried cubed breads and loads of sage, moistened with chicken stock. Can be baked ahead and frozen. Easy to sub olive oil and veg stock to make vegetarian/vegan. 

We also really like haricots vert, the way described above. I actually don't care anything about the turkey–it's all about the sides for me.

HANK: What’s the difference between dressing and stuffing? Whether it’s cooked IN the turkey?

LUCY BURDETTE: I don’t know the answer Hank, but I suspect it’s regional. We call ours stuffing, even though it’s no longer stuffed into the turkey. Mine sounds a lot like Debs’, sometimes with the addition of sausage, but always cornbread. Once I made it with oysters–it was good but weird. Here’s the link to my recipe: https://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/2013/11/thanksgiving-cornbread-and-sausage.html

I love the sound of Kaytie’s brussel sprouts, but prefer the can of cranberry jelly to anything homemade. Oh, and here’s one more recipe for decadent corn spoonbread: https://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/2019/01/donna-kleins-corn-spoon-bread-revised.html

The cranberry debate is a blog post for another day as I am firmly on Team Canned Jelly with Lucy.

Okay, Readers, your turn. What's your favorite side dish? And are you a canned cranberry jelly or homemade cranberry relish person?

Pumpkin Mousse Perfect for Fall

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: If it's Sunday, it must mean Celia Wakefield with another delicious recipe. Today, she has a showy-looking dessert perfect for your Hallowe'en-Thanksgiving-Christmas dinner menu. As usual, I had the chance to gobble it down as fast as possible try a taste, and I can promise you'll enjoy it - as will your guests, who, let's face it, might be a teensy bit tired of the same old pumpkin pie. As usual, there's a video sharing some of Celia's techniques at the end.

 

 

Good morning dear friends, writers and JRW’s. We are in the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, surrounded by yellow and orange everywhere we look. Orange is what I have to share today. 

 

 

Although all the writing I do is memoir based or recipe based I do take care to read each JRW blog and post to learn more about improving my writing. Please feel free to chime in here, though with the expert editor, Julia, who checks my writing, hopefully I won’t make too many bloopers. I know it’s important in writing mysteries to have a main theme and several sub themes and I hope I have achieved that. 

 

Pumpkin is the queen of Fall, and pumpkin pie is universally beloved in the USA and is THE quintessential Thanksgiving dessert. Probably not made from the pumpkins your grade schoolers carved and decorated with magic marker. 

 

 

However arriving in the States as an adult, I found many new customs that I might have heard of but didn’t realize that I would adopt. Once Olivia was headed to nursery school I learned that Halloween and Thanksgiving were celebrations I needed to appreciate, understand and get with the program as any good mom would. 

 

 

Luckily, Dad loved to carve pumpkins with daughter as my poor artistic skills were not even up to pumpkin carving. However I did made awesome costumes, and three year old Olivia was a star in the tiger suit I made from fake fur, which may have been eclipsed by the Queen of Hearts a couple of years later. A circular skirt of silver lame embroidered with BIG hot pink lame hearts. Barbie, eat your heart out. 

 

But Thanksgiving - lots of new food to learn to love. I do remember eating squash or something with marshmallows on it served at a friends house, and it turned out that pumpkin pie is not a fav of mine either.  (However, apple crumble is always welcome.)

 

One year, we were invited to Olivia’s favorite babysitters home for Thanksgiving dinner, and I was asked to bring a dessert. Panic on the pie front. How could I turn pumpkin into something I would be proud to serve and eat? 

 

I hunted through my American cook books and Gourmet Magazine, and found in The Everyday Gourmet, published the previous year by my local Junior League, a pumpkin mousse. It looked good, it fitted the brief, and best of all it had rum in it and wasn’t too complex a recipe. 

 

How did I get involved with the Junior League of Northern Westchester? No, I wasn’t a member but I was the British Butler. The Junior League had undertaken a three year project to build and outfit the first house for domestic violence victims in the area. This was a big deal, and part of their fund raising was The Everyday Gourmet with its 400 recipes. It is the epitome of late ’70’s cooking with lots of cream, butter etc.

 

 

I was asked to teach the volunteers to make the dessert for the book launch at a luncheon at the local country club. It was all very upmarket, and I found they wanted me to work with volunteers to create a hundred or so floating island desserts! All I remember from the prep part is sticky. So many egg whites, so much custard made from scratch, so much beating and shaping. But with my volunteers, we were successful, lauded and appreciated. (My cookbook offering from the British Butler was a demo on working with phyllo pastry, which was in demand by my clients.)

 

 

Where better to look for a different pumpkin dessert than the Junior League book? I found a pumpkin mousse submitted by Nancy Hoggson which I successful presented for  the Thanksgiving dinner. I promise it will be welcomed at any Halloween buffet, decorated with candy corn or eyeballs, or at Thanksgiving Dinner, with whipped cream and pecans, chocolate or my fav: crystalized ginger shards.

INGREDIENTS:

2 packets unflavored gelatin

1/2 cup dark rum (substitutions: orange juice or bourbon)

8 eggs

1 1/3 cups sugar (measure 2/3 cup sugar for half recipe)*

2 cups cooked pumpkin (canned works very well)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp mace

1/2 tsp ground cloves

2 cups heavy cream, whipped

EQUIPMENT:

Double boiler or set a Pyrex bowl on a small saucepan with simmering water in the bottom

Mixing bowl 

Electric hand beater or a stand mixer

Small bowl for measured spices

Chilled bowl for whipping cream

Whisks and spatulas

METHOD:

• Set double boiler with water in bottom half on stove
• Place the rum or liquid in the top half and sprinkle on the gelatin. Place over the lower pan and watch as the gelatin melts. Keep the heat low and stir gently. When dissolved remove from heat and allow to cool down.
• Measure the other ingredients, mixing the spices in the small bowl.
• Break the eggs into the mixing bowl and start beating. Once they are mixed well increase the speed and add the sugar in a dessert spoon at a time.
• Beat well till the mix increases in volume.
• Sprinkle the spice mix over the eggs and sugar and stir in.
• Add the pumpkin together with the rum-gelatin mixture, and stir with with the electric mixer on low.
• Add the cream to the chilled bowl and whip till stiff
• Mix a couple of spoons of the pumpkin egg into the cream
• Using a spatula fold the cream into the pumpkin mixture till incorporated
• Spoon into individual bowls or into a serving bowl and refrigerate.
• To serve decorate with whipped cream and small candies.

I made a half recipe for us to try which certainly made enough for 6 people. Nancy writes that this quantity serves 8-10 but with other desserts it would serve more. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 Whether you are one or two at a table, or crowded in with friends and family, the Jungle Reds wish you a day of connection, reflection, and gratitude. Muskogee writer Joy Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, shares her poem about the worlds and lives we make around those tables. We hope you enjoy it.

The Great American Bake Off? Thanksgiving Dessert! A guest blog by Catriona McPherson

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: So, Publishers' Weekly says, about SCOT IN A TRAP,  "McPherson keeps the laughs and the action rolling along." But you know - that's just Catriona, whether writing her Last Ditch mysteries, hanging out at the bar at a conference, or, as she shares with us today, working her way up the ladder of that most-American of all meals: Thanksgiving dinner.

My hat's off to you, Catriona - if I reversed the trip my ancestors made, emigrated to Scotland, and was invited to contribute to a Burns Night dinner? I'd just pretend both my hands were broken.

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving for tomorrow, Reds!

 

And what a timely guest post this is. Thank you so much for having me today. SCOT IN A TRAP (sorry for the earworm) opens on Thanksgiving Day morning, with my fish-out-of-water Scot, Lexy Campbell surveying the prepped food in the Last Ditch Motel kitchen and having mild hysterics.

She commits the solecism of suggesting she might slice up some ripe pears in case, after the mammoth main course, anyone wants a lighter dessert than . . . the seven pies she can see all around her.

It was a lot of fun to write and it made me realise how long I had lived here (eleven years), given that I had to dig so deep for the food vertigo I used to suffer. Thanksgiving dinner feels completely normal now. I don’t blink at the fact that there’s a brown-sugar crust on top of the yams; I barely notice the marshmallows; I know the rolls are going to taste like cake; and I believe that there truly will be some macaroni under all that cream and melted cheese if I keep digging.

My part in Thanksgiving has seen a dizzying ascent over those eleven years. When fellow writer, Eileen Rendahl, first invited me to join her Friends and Family Thanksgiving Feast, and I asked what I could contribute, I was – rightly and properly – held down at Martinelli’s level. The last thing they needed was someone who didn’t know what a yam was turning up with a casserole dish under her arm.

After a couple of years, I got promoted to appetisers. Pretty safe still, because who eats appetisers on Thanksgiving? I dutifully put blobs of blue cheese in the sharp end of a lot of chicory spears and sprinkled them with candied walnuts, knowing they’d end up in the compost.

Apprenticeship served, I was given clearance to bring green bean casserole.

I almost lost the commission when I asked what pearl onions were, but I promised I would google extensively before I turned the stove on. As the picture shows, I made two casseroles: one with fresh beans, a roux, onions fried in a pan and pesky little onions that I skinned myself; one with frozen beans and onions, a can of soup and French’s fried. Guess which one went first? Yep. And you know why? It was nicer.

By this time, at other points on the calendar, I had served up trifles, shortbread, cakes and crumbles at various gatherings and so it came to pass that one year, Eileen asked me if I would make, for Thanksgiving, for twenty Americans . . . you guessed it . . . the pies.

What a humbling experience it was to be given this honour. What a nerve-wracking experience it was actually to do the baking, take it to the feast, sit there through hours of turkey and football knowing the axe would fall eventually, and then hear someone say “dessert?”

I didn’t eat any myself. I couldn’t swallow. I just sat there watching twenty Americans dig into my pumpkin and pecan pies. Me, who had never made or eaten a pumpkin pie in my life and didn’t even pronounce “pecan” in a way that could clue a produce assistant in to what I was looking for. People, I didn’t know “pie crust” was what you called the pastry bit underneath the filling. Talk about flying blind.

I’ve made the pies for a few years now: one pumpkin; one pecan; and one wild card – i.e. whatever the person who speaks up first asks for. Sometimes it’s chocolate, sometimes it’s apple and blackberry, this year I’m tempted to make lemon meringue because I’ve never made one. But I’ve watched ten seasons of the Great British Bake Off and I’ve got the apron. How hard could it be?

 

 

Reds and friends, what wild-card pie would you have asked for if you were coming to Eileen’s with me? Or, if you want to make me feel better, what’s the scariest bit of catering you’ve ever been talked into?

 

Catriona McPherson (she/her) was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US in 2010. She writes: preposterous1930s detective stories, set in the old country and featuring an aristocratic sleuth; modern comedies set in the Last Ditch Motel in fictional (yeah, sure) California; and, darker than both of those (which is not difficult), a strand of contemporary psychological thrillers.

Her books have won or been shortlisted for the Edgar, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Lefty, the Macavity, the Mary Higgins Clark award and the UK Ellery Queen Dagger. She has just introduced a fresh character in IN PLACE OF FEAR, which finally marries her love of historicals with her own working-class roots, but right now, she’s writing the sixth book in what was supposed to be the Last Ditch trilogy.

Catriona is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime. You can find out more about her at her website, friend her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter. 

 

A mysterious object the size of a suitcase, all wrapped in bacon and smelling of syrup, can mean only one thing: Thanksgiving at the Last Ditch Motel. This year the motel residents are in extra-celebratory mood as the holiday brings a new arrival to the group - a bouncing baby girl.

But as one life enters the Ditch, another leaves it. Menzies Lassiter has only just checked in. When resident counsellor Lexy Campbell tries to deliver his breakfast the next day, she finds him checked out. Permanently. Shocking enough if he was a stranger, but Lexy recognises that face. Menzies was her first love until he broke her heart many years ago.

What's he doing at the Last Ditch? What's he doing dead? And how can Lexy escape the fact that she alone had the means, the opportunity - and certainly the motive - to kill him?