The Pies Will Come Out, Tomorrow...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Okay, that title is so silly. But are we all crazed? With travel or plans or cooking?  Or not?

I have to write my 1000 words today, and do laundry, and somehow find three pies to take to our pals' house tomorrow for Thanksgiving.

I'm missing my dear family, spread far and wide. And missing my mom. And almost inspired to make black cherry Jell-o mold with black cherries, a staple at our Thanksgiving dinners since the sixties. 

My mom and stepfather were married on Thanksgiving, and coming home for that anniversary/holiday was always a command performance. Now, although no one lives there anymore, I am counting blessings like mad. What a tender time of year. 

I know we're all busy--so quickly, what are you all up to today?

HALLIE EPHRON: Today we're traveling to Brooklyn to be with the people I love most in this world, counting my blessings all the way. Tomorrow we cook!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Well, we had plans to travel for Thanksgiving to Lake Forest, IL. (You may remember the Sailor is stationed at Great Lakes, just a little way up the road.) We were finally going to do the big city Thanksgiving getaway - see the huge parade, stay in the wonderful Deer Path Inn and eat out instead of cooking.

Then the Sailor pulled duty on Thanksgiving Day. Plus, he found out today and Friday are also regular duty days, which means the only times we'd be able to see him would be a few hours in the evening. Ugh. Since he's coming home for two weeks around Christmas (yay!) we decided to can the plan. And instead - sssh! Don't tell anyone! - we're playing hooky for Thanksgiving.

We're going to watch the Macy's Parade in our pajamas in our not-cleaned-for-guests house, then watch the Westminster Dog show, then eat some of Ross's wonderful lamb stew, which we all like a lot more than turkey, and then we're going out to see Disney's Moana! We'll even have the best part of the day, since a neighbor is making us a pie. It feels VERY wicked and indulgent, and it's just one break in our usual round of hosting/guesting/traveling to DC for family, but we're all looking forward to it like crazy.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Julia, yes, the Westminster Dog Show!!! And the Macy's Parade! I will be watching those, and then we are going to my aunt's for early-afternoon dinner, and then stopping by to visit with my hub's family--although I, at least-will not manage to eat TWO Thanksgiving dinners. I'm only making my traditional Cranberry-Orange-Jalepeno relish, so easy peasy Thanksgiving for me and I'm really looking forward to it.

Julia, traditionally, we've gone to hub's family on Christmas Eve, then to mine (aunt, cousins, cousins' kids, and now cousin's son's baby!) on Christmas Day. Then a couple of years ago we got snowed in on Christmas Day and it was fabulous!!! I decided that was my new tradition.  I do miss seeing my relatives, but so lovely to stay home with just us and kids and our friend Gigi (and now grandbaby Wren!!!) Bliss.

LUCY BURDETTE: We will be very very low key too, as we're gathering with all the fam for Christmas. We were invited to have dinner with some neighbors, and my contribution will be leek, pepper, butter butter butter biscuits. (Last year I had a Meniere's dizzy episode after Thanksgiving so I'll be very cautious. Probably no gravy, sad to say.)

Here's the recipe for the biscuits, which is from the fabulous CT bakery, Four and 20 Blackbirds:

http://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/2016/11/leek-pepper-biscuits-recipe-for.html

HANK: Okay, you all. Tell me about the parade. I do not understand the parade.  Why is it fun to watch?

Reds and readers…do you watch the parade? And we know you’re crazed, but just check in! What are you doing today?  (And as our dear Ramona often asks--how much butter is in your house right now?)  

And then—good luck! Happy Thanksgiving, all!  (And just so you know: tomorrow, turkey tips. Friday, a quiz. Saturday, a fabulous author. And Sunday—a call to arms.)

In the Same (Gravy) Boat

Where’s the mystery in Thanksgiving? That’s an easy one. It’s the gravy.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Why is it after so many years of making Thanksgiving dinner for various numbers of family and friends, every year on Thanksgiving morning I wake up with the burning (ouch) question: How do you make gravy?

Is it easy for you? I’ve been a TV reporter for the past 40 years.  I’ve wired myself with hidden cameras, gone undercover into tricky situations, confronted corrupt politicians and chased down criminals.

But the gravy thing? No can do.

First you have to wait til the turkey’s done, right? Then somehow, lift the huge and hot turkey out of the roasting pan without ruining the perfectly brown (if you’re lucky and careful) skin and transfer it to a platter. They never tell you exactly how to do that.

I always wind up putting a huge spoon into the stuffing cavity and using a spatula thing to boost the underside. The thing weighs 25 pounds after all—more, because of the stuffing I guess, right? So this is what they don’t say in the instructions...

Hurray.

The turkey is, once again, safely placed on the platter. The fragrance is tantalizing, amazing, irresistible, and people are ready to eat. Happily, there’s the “the turkey has to rest” rule, or else the gravy would never get made.

Into the oven goes the other container of stuffing, the sweet potato casserole, and the experimental dish I make every year that no one eats. Hoping that because there are three things in the oven trying to cook at 350 degrees at one time doesn’t throw off the temperature somehow.

My sister, a real chef, says real chefs just turn the oven to the highest possible temp and cook the food til it’s done. Thanks, Nancy. YOU come over and do this.

Anyway, praying for side dishes, you can no longer ignore the gravy. Balanced on two burners on the stove , that roasting pan sits, taunting. One recipe says “Skim off the fat.” You know how long that takes? And how difficult that is? I’ve purchased ever fat-skimming implement known to Sur La Table and I’m here to tell you, for me, they don’t work. So, for a couple of minutes, I pretend to skim off the fat.

 The turkey juices are beginning to bubble. I must make the oh-so-critical next decisions. Thickener. Flour? Cornstarch? Whatever arrowroot is? Maybe no thickener? Just clear gravy?

How did I do this last year?

Then the liquid. Wine? Water? Chicken broth? Did anyone buy chicken broth? (I guess “anyone” would be me.)

Back in the recesses of the left-hand cabinet, I find can of chicken broth. Does a little rust around the edges of the can make any difference?

Should I have saved the giblets? And what are those, anyway? But too late now. The turkey juices are bubbling. I whisk the brown stuff (what is that anyway? Do we want to know?) off the sides and bottom of the pan and into the mix.

Someone asks if there are appetizers, and if so, when we’re having them. Someone is about to get clobbered with a wooden spoon. Cornstarch it is. I dump cornstarch into a Pyrex cup of water—would it be better to put the water into the cornstarch? And make a little paste. I stir it into the pan juices. I think this is right. Whatever. No going back now.

Someone offers me champagne. Apparently, in the other room, the party is starting. I take a sip of the champagne—and dump the rest into the gravy. Stir stir stir. Add the chicken soup and a can of water. I’ve crossed the gravy Rubicon now. Wishing for more champagne. Stir stir stir.

Stir stir stir.

Stir stir stir.

  Oh. My gosh. Gravy.

I hope I remember this for next year.

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

And what hints to you have to make your gravy perfect? Or--hey--any Thanksgiving hints. All are welcome...and, um, needed...

Thanksgiving GOTTA HAVE IT

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Thanksgiving 19...75? May have been the most revealing ever.  Backstory: Every year that I could remember, we had two turkeys, and my mother made two kinds of stuffing. One turkey had the good kind, plain, from Pepperidge Farm, with the addition of sauteed celery and onions, which of course is the perfect stuffing. More on that in a minute. 

In the other turkey was the gross yucky stuffing. It was Pepperidge Farm-based—but

Mom, for some reason us kids could never comprehend, added oysters. (Not in the shells, of course. But the photo without them was disgusting.)

We DIED, even thinking about it. As  a ten year old, when my sister Nina was seven and Nancy was five, we would watch Mom put the oysters in the dressing and then hold our tummies in pretend agony. HOW, we wailed, could anyone eat that stuff? We were so grateful that there was the whole other turkey that had delicious plain stuffing.

So fast forward until 1975, when I was a nicely grown up twenty- something. I was back home in Indiana, in the kitchen, smelling all the Thanksgiving smells as Mom made the traditional two turkeys. She made up the big bowl of stuffing, it smelled fabulous, and then proceeded to dump the can of oysters into the big ceramic bowl.

MOM! I yelped. You put oysters in the whole thing!

Mom looked at me, like, dumb kid. “Honey,” she finally said. “You think I really made two different stuffings every year? I never did. You kids have been happily eating oyster dressing since day one.”

Well, I was shocked.  Parental deceit, and at holiday time, too! But—we happily ate it again. And the oyster stuffing story is one of our holiday traditions.

Liz loved the cranberry sauce from a can, you know, the kind where you could see the ridges? Yuck, but chacun a son gout.

And we also always had black cherry Jello with black cherries in it. Weird, dark dark red jello, made in a bundt cake mold, with marble-sized black cherries floating in it. "Black cherry" is a kind of weird flavor not found in nature (I guess Bing cherries are the closest) but if my mother tried to serve Thanksgiving dinner without Black Cherry Jello mold, my little brother Chip (now a handsome and dashing attorney--age 55--in Colorado) would have a fit. We ALWAYS had Jello.

So what about you, Reds? And Thanksgiving must-haves, deceptions, or family necessities?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: This is Texas, so cornbread dressing is a MUST. With lots of sage, celery, and onion. I love my cranberry relish recipe, although I suspect that no one else likes it as much as me... My daughter and I LOVE fresh Brussels sprouts, sauteed with bacon, but we are in the minority. My aunt still does Thanksgiving dinner, and there is no weird jello, thank goodness!

HANK: Hey, talk to Chip! And Brussels sprouts are now a definite necessity, I’m with you. 

RHYS BOWEN: The one thing I can NOT have is sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on it. I ate my first one when I was pregnant, felt violently ill and can never face one since. I adore good stuffing with lots of herbs. John likes sausage meat stuffing. Clare makes the best mashed potatoes and everyone insists on the family recipe apple crumble.

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Gourmet family that we are, we require Pepperidge Farm herbed stuffing in our turkey. No oysters or cornbread stuffing for us. It’s got to be from the bag, using the recipe ON the bag and following their suggestion to add onions and celery.

HANK: Exactly! Exactly! Hallie, we

should have come to YOUR house.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Now see, I make stuffing from scratch, following the recipe my mother used and her mother used. It's so economical, I suspect it was a Depression-era-or-earlier thing.

I take an entire loaf of white bread - cheapo white no-fiber bread we all ate back in 1964. Leave it out two days til it gets nice and stale. Saute onions and celery in butter while boiling the celery leaves, onion ends and carrot trimmings with the turkey neck for a quick stock. Tear the stale bread in pieces, toss with the onion-celery  mix, sage, and dampen it well with the stock. You must have enough to stuff the bird and make a separate casserole dish, because everybody knows some people like stuffing wet and some like it dry.

Oh, and the must-have from Ross's side of the family? Birds Eye green beans and spaetzle. Not hand-snapped fresh green beans, God forbid, but veggies and sauce frozen in a microwaveable dish. Oh well, at least it frees up one of the burners for my latest attempt at a fancy cranberry sauce that someone might actually eat.


 HANK:  So how about you, Reds? What’s your Thanksgiving must-have? What’s your vote on mashed potatoes? Lumpy or smooth? And sweet potatoes with marshmallows? Yea or nay?

And coming up this week: tomorrow, Gravy!  Wednesday, cooking secrets for emergencies!  And then, surprises.

(And Breaking news: TRUTH BE TOLD  is an RT BookReviews nominee for best suspense thriller of 2014!)