To invite people to dine with us is to make ourselves
responsible for their well-being for as long as they are under our roofs.
~ Jean Anthelme
Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental
Gastronomy
In November, I am continuing to participate in the Two
Pages-a-Day writing challenge. And I
must have been abducted by aliens who replaced my brain with rocks, because I’m
also doing NaNoWriMo for the first time.
Someone get this girl a drink!!
F
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rom the time I was able
to butter a biscuit, I learned that Southern hospitality is intimately entwined
around food.
It doesn’t matter if you
ate at Aunt Ruth’s five minutes ago. You’re
at Aunt Pat’s now, and she’s just pulled her famous corn pudding out of the
oven.
We love you, therefore
you will eat.
And if you don’t eat,
you either
1. Don’t love us
2. Don’t like the food
Either way, something is seriously wrong with you.
Despite ~ or perhaps
because of ~ navigating this emotional and gastronomical mine field, I look
forward to hosting friends and loved ones with culinary glee. I’m happiest when I’m feeding people and
making them feel relaxed and welcome.
The expectations for
warmth, love, peace, and affection are astronomical this time of year. Add to that, the decrease in sunlight, and it’s
no surprise that people suffer from depression and anxiety. A lot of times, this can happen even when one
is surrounded by family.
Okay, let’s be honest,
sometimes it happens because one is
surrounded by family!
Squash and Roasted
Mushrooms
Image Credit: Gourmet.com
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But when you have no
family, it’s tough for a different reason.
So every Thanksgiving, I try to host a few holiday orphans ~ friends
without family in the area. This year’s
guest list includes friends who haven’t been out to my place in the country, as
well as the famous Fallen Sparrow,
who will be wear a chef hat and assisting me in the kitchen.
Squash will never be
the same.
I’ll post the menu
next week once it’s finalized, but since we’ll all be shopping this weekend for
most of the items for the big feast, here are my top five “To try out on my unsuspecting
eager friends” recipes for Thanksgiving.
All these recipes and
more can be found on my Pinterest board – Autumn
A friend just posted
on Facebook today how much she hates cranberry sauce. I’ll agree ~ canned cranberry sauce has
always struck me as odd and unnatural.
Sort of like those gelatin salads of the 1950s. This cranberry sauce will erase those
horrific childhood memories of quivering blobs of reddish stuff.
As much as possible, I
like to eat in season. And I love winter
squash. I plan on making my famous
Butternut Squash Soup, but Sparrow also loves spaghetti squash, so I think this
will be a great way to highlight the lovely golden gourd.
Everyone has their
special way of making the anchor piece of the meal: the turkey (or ham/pheasant/goose/deer/groundhog
~ wait, what?!) But I’m highlighting
sides because whipping up creative sides is always an issue. Especially for people who think vegetables
are boring.
It’s one of the
reasons I like juicing mine so much ~ easier to swallow.
Stuffing is
sacred. I know this, but I like to play
with it anyway. Especially since at
least three of my guests are gluten-free.
This recipe is not gluten free but it can easily be made so. For the life of me, I can’t remember the
brand of my favorite gluten-free “bread” crumbs. I’ll update this post once I remember.
Replace the chicken
stock with vegetable and leave out the eggs, and you have vegan stuffing.
Pumpkin Pie Rugelach – Serious Eats
I know I just said
that I was talking mostly about creative sides, but pumpkin is a squash, so
this counts. Sort of.
Also, Thanksgiving
actually marks the beginning of Hanukkah this year.
This recipe is not
vegan or gluten-free. I would use the
tofu based “cream cheese” but processed soy in this country is mostly GMO and
phtyo-estrogens aren’t good for me or my guests anyway. The cream cheese goes into the dough, so I
may try substituting lard ~ after all, this recipe is already non-vegan.
Might as well go all
the way.
Oremus pro invicem,
~ Mikaela
What are
you serving for Thanksgiving this year?
Are you trying any new recipes or sticking with the tried and true?
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