having finished we are water in less than a week, i’m now in the middle of bossypants by tina fey. i would insert a funny quote here, but then i’d have to put whole chapters in here because her anecdotal storytelling is all about context, followed by the snappy one-liner that you will not really laugh at without the context. trust me, i know this from experience. i sat guffawing on the sofa last night and every time i would burst out laughing, m would ask me what was so funny. i’d hem and haw, try to summarize and then hit her with the funny one-liner. what i got in response was a blank stare followed by her return to her iphone game. see? context is everything.

now, i am sitting in a hospital cafeteria snickering at my iphone as i continue with this whole context/one-liner formula for private entertainment and pretty sure i look amused and amusing. thankfully, no one is asking me what is so funny – blank stares and rejection from the one i love the most is about all i can handle.

;)

“If you want people to flock to art, lure them with pancakes.” – wally lamb, we are water

our first thanksgiving in our new home was amazing. amazingly tasty. amazingly fatiguing. amazingly successful. first, my list of thanks:

• to mp, who brought 6 chairs so i didn’t have to sit on my bar stool, salad plates to accommodate our multiple courses, silverware, a stockpot, apple cider, and folding tables; who helped me make pasta; for being my cheerleader
• to jt, for the flowers, doing multiple courses of dishes, and not being shy about sneaking pasta sauce
• to lcr and kl, for 2 more chairs and moral support and dish duty and more moral support
• to everyone who helped rearrange tables to accommodate 10 and then 12 and then 16 as the night progressed; to the extroverts who mingled and helped make everyone feel welcome and included throughout the evening; to the organized people who helped make sure everyone had plates and silverware and was seated when food arrived on the table (i was in the kitchen most of the night but (every single time) when i exited to eat, everyone was seated and eagerly anticipating the next course. whoever did that was *awesome*. we owe a great deal of our success to you.)

where do i even begin?

menu:

• new england express punch (ba)
• pork rillettes a la jacques pepin with various cornichons, olives, and fine cheese company charcoal squares
• homemade baguettes (ci)
• butternut squash soup (food52) and raw butternut squash salad (f&w) using squash from our garden
• fresh pasta and homemade meatballs (ci)
• bill niman turkey, stuffing (ba), mashed potatoes (ba), pomegranate-mint relish (ba), green beans, and awesome gravy using stock made from the neck
• skipped the sufganiyot (ba) because of the kneading required last minute and made apple cake 2 ways: french apple cake (ci) and summer peach cake with apples (ci) and lots of m’s mods

we didn’t use as much butter or cream or even milk this year, but we probably upped the salt, or at least it seemed like it. we used a lot of our specialty gadgets: meat grinder, permanently loaned KA with pasta attachment, tabletop proofer, mandoline, induction cooktop.

we nailed the quantity on most things: just the right amount of rillettes (single batch) and baguettes (double batch – although we could’ve made 6 batches and they would have been consumed. it’s fresh bread, after all.). just the right amount of pasta (double batch) but only because i messed up and tossed the first double batch and turned what should have been the third batch into a double batch. just the right amount of turkey (one 20lb turkey). just the right amount of stuffing (single batch). just the right amount of relish (four batches). just the right amount of green beans (2 batches). just the right amount of apple cake (2 cakes – we have only 1/2 of a cake left.) – most preferred the official french apple cake – almost like custard and the layered apples are awesome (the cake was *money* despite our initial assessment of it being too oily.). the cake with m’s mods was more tart (lemon juice) and more apple-y and perhaps a bit too sweet.

we made too much meatball sauce on purpose so we definitely had too much but now we have awesome leftovers to go with our many fresh pasta meals. we made waaaaaaay too many potatoes. even if they hadn’t had a funky texture, we made too many – two serving bowls only.

salad was a wash because in terms of leftovers, we made about the right amount, but it seemed so filling, we probably could’ve made less and been just as happy.

it’s not even worth mentioning what we made too little of because there was not an ounce of “too little” present at this meal. no, wait! too little time. always too little time. but we only fell behind by about 45 minutes and hopefully the progression of courses allowed people time to mingle and digest.

i overcooked the turkey (even more so than previous years) which makes me sad because cooked properly, it would have been a fantastic heritage bird. and everything was wrong about the potatoes from the beginning so next time i won’t let them sit in salt water for over an hour, i won’t overcook them, i won’t let them sit on the stove unmashed, and i will rice them (see? everything was wrong…) but even thomas keller says there’s something that’s not always perfect at thanksgiving so i’m not being too hard on myself…the turkey deserved better, though; even the compound butter couldn’t save it, but it did give it a lovely brown color (no photo, sadly).

my pomegranate-mint relish calls for 6 cups of pomegranate seeds. historically, i’m a picker, painfully and carefully extracting each seed from the surrounding pith. i had read about the soaking in water method but that seemed like you would lose valuable juice so i looked for another method and found a couple of videos which detail how thwacking the ponegranate half with a wooden spoon releases the seeds much more efficiently than picking. it’s true – spanking is more efficient but quality control goes down significantly as all seeds, even the brown, moldy ones, get dumped into the bowl. the spanking method is also slightly messier (see “bloody” mess all over the kitchen table – the dude in the youtube video wasn’t this messy), especially if you thwack it too hard or too carelessly. nevertheless, i will probably use this method again in the future – it’s worth it.

apparently, i’ve been wasting up to 30% of every apple i eat. i tried this top down method and voila! no core!