Considering there were just two of us, I made a lot of different things for Thanksgiving. And practically everything had its own sauce. I made horseradish sauce for the roasted parsnips and carrots (ground horseradish, yogurt, cider vinegar — tangy) and “gorgonzola” cream for the butternut squash using leftover soft, stinky cheese (equal amounts butter & cheese, garlic, pounded with a pinch of salt; this was delicious). And for the steamed cauliflower, a whole tiny one, very cute: wait, what is this “sauce” on my list? Apparently I was supposed to remember and find the recipe. Hah! However, as I had two kinds of cranberry sauce and mushroom gravy in addition to the sauces above, I guess we were sufficiently sauced. So to speak. (I got the sauce ideas from Deborah Madison’s Vegetable Literacy, a book I had better buy so that I can quit renewing the library copy.)
The cocktail was cranberry shrub with seltzer, vodka, and Dutch’s Spirits’ Prohibitters (part of a set of three bought at the Hudson Valley Wine Festival last year); appetizers were radishes with butter & salt, olives, and artichoke hearts marinated with olive oil, lemon, and chopped olives. For soup we had passato di verdure from Beatrice Tosti di Valminata, mentioned here. Along with the parsnips, cauliflower, and squash, I made a rather unsuccessful, mostly classic stuffing using a nice bread from Mazzola’s, celery, onions, and vegetable stock. (It needed more stock, since turkey juices were not available.) Z brought red Philippine rice and Mama Stanberg’s cranberry relish; the other cranberry sauce was the classic plain with a little medium hot pepper. We drank a granacha from Navarre, Lurra, with a sheep on the label.
I was going to make an apple crisp but in the end we ate some leftover mini pumpkin cupcakes and a Blanc de Calville apple from the Samascott orchard in Kinderhook. Oh my god, I bored everyone with my enthusiasm for this apple. Crisp with a bursting juice, and a winey tang.
The Haruspex 