Personal essays
The food is not the hard part
It begins with Chex Mix
A friend and I were discussing Thanksgiving dinner this morning.
The last time I saw his entire family was when they joined us on Thanksgiving a few years back. We had more than twenty people over - it was probably the last time I had a house filled with people.
Thanksgiving is the easiest meal to make for other people.
If you can make Chex mix (and you can), then you can make Thanksgiving dinner.
Chex mix is just an assortment of cereal, pretzels, and peanuts mixed with melted butter, some seasonings, and Worcestershire sauce.
There’s a ten minute microwave recipe - but I’ve never liked the results as much as the one hour oven recipe. Ever fifteen minutes you give it a good stir and after an hour it’s perfect.
See. I knew you could do it.
None of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes are any more difficult than Chex mix.
Making a meal
Cranberry sauce? There are some people who believe that it comes from a can. If their cranberry sauce isn’t cylindrical with indentations from the can it came in, it can’t be authentic.
On the other hand, you just boil cranberries with water and sugar and it turns into a delicious side dish.
Really, if you can boil water, you can make cranberry sauce.
Stuffing? You can make a hard one or you can make the one I make. Sautee some onions and celery. Add a lot of sausage and cook that until it’s done enough to eat. Dump in some chicken stock and a packet of stuffing croutons. Stir. Put in a casserole dish and bake for 40 minutes until it is sent and getting crispy on top.
You can make a harder one - but there’s nothing really to making a good one.
Green bean casserole? I actually made a harder one but the easy way is to blanch some green beans then add cream of mushroom soup and top with those fried onions and bake until bubbly.
Potatoes? Peel, dice and boil potatoes. When they’re done, drain them and throw in a ton of butter and some warmed milk. Mix with a wooden spoon. The potatoes are instantly mashed and delicious.
The turkey itself? The only hard part is remembering, if you buy a frozen one, to put it into the refrigerator to thaw many days in advance.
As long as you correctly read the word “many”, you’ll be fine. Oh, and take the organs and neck that are stored in the cavity of the bird out before you cook it.
Gravy? Please. You can buy gravy if you want or just cook equal parts of fat and flour and stir until the flour is cooked a bit.
This is called a roux.
Aren’t you fancy?
Ladle in hot stock a little at a time. At first it won’t look right. Everything will seize up and it looks as if this isn’t working. Add more stock and keep stirring. At some point it will loosen up. At another point it will be the consistency of gravy.
Check for seasoning.
That’s another fancy recipe term that just means, “do you need to add salt?”
If you don’t know how to bake bread, have someone else bring the rolls. If you can bake bread then this and the potatoes are the too items I think you must do on the day. Everything else can be done ahead.
The problems
The food, no matter how many people you are cooking for, is not the problem.
Everything you make can be doubled, or tripled, or halved without any difficulty. You can make for more or fewer people without any problems (though you should account for leftovers).
You can make vegetarian or vegan versions of pretty much everything. I’ve even made a meat-free turkey that came out pretty good.
The two challenges for me are planning and people.
You have to plan ahead so that you aren’t doing much work on Thanksgiving itself.
I usually roast the turkey a couple of days early, slice it, and put the meat in sous vide bags and bring it back to temperature on Thanksgiving in a water bath so we can eat at whatever time without the meat being dried out.
Again, that’s not the problem with Thanksgiving. It’s the other people.
We used to go to our dentist’s house for Christmas Eve. It felt odd that among their large family, we were there as well.
Kim said this to one of the daughters who was there with her family. “Oh now,” the woman told Kim, “having you here means that our family is on their best behavior. Everyone has a much better time.”
I miss our large Thanksgivings.
It’s not that anyone acts out, but it was different with a house filled with people.
I miss cooking for other people.
The real problem
On the phone this morning, my friend said, “well, you could have friends over for a celebration.”
It reminded me of one of the best talks I ever saw.
In it a woman described a game that simulated depression.
When the game begins the player is surrounded by people and resources that can help.
As the game progresses, those people and resources are still there but the player can’t see them and can’t take advantage of them in any way. Those choices have been taken away from them.
I was thinking of that game this week.
Not for me.
Well, more accurately, not just for me, but for all of us.
We scroll through our friendships instead of living them and the idea of real people, in person, slips away.
I still meet with friends for coffee, for meals, in person, for real.
During the pandemic the option of having friends over for dinner was removed and I fear it’s been removed forever.
I will cook a meal or bake some bread and bring it to your house.
The food is not the hard part.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 244. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe