With enough recipes to share, we'll call it friendsgiving
This is FRIENDSHIP FOOD's season to shine; I hope your tables (and hearts) will, too
Hello! Hello!
I’m back in Connecticut. The air is crisp, the trees are mostly bare, the water on the pond looks rough, the wind chimes are ringing nonstop and I’m so turned around that I couldn’t decide if the squirrel out front was hiding acorns for winter or digging them up for spring. Jet lag is real. But so is Thanksgiving. As late as it is this year, it still seems to have surprised me. I’m not in charge this year, but I’m still going through recipes because the food for Thanksgiving is the kind of food I’ll be making throughout the holidays and into winter. It’s also FRIENDSHIP FOOD. Sharing food with friends has no season, but over the next few weeks, the holidays may give us more chances to share the food we love with the people we love. In the hope that this will be so, I’m getting ready. I’ve got a bushelful of recipes for you to consider — enough for Thanksgiving and beyond.
But first …
A Recipe from the Way Back
Shortly after Michael and I got married, I started a recipe book in which I wrote down recipes from friends, newspapers and magazines. This is the first recipe in the first notebook that I started. It came from our friend Paula, and I made it every Thanksgiving in a dark, dark brown Arabica pottery casserole (the mate to the one I broke the first night I ever cooked dinner — I’d filled it with frozen peas and put it over a gas flame: What a mess!). I haven’t made this dish in decades (and don’t see myself ever making it again), but that doesn’t stop Michael from asking for it every Thanksgiving. It’s our running joke. As I look at it now, I don’t recognize the handwriting, but I do giggle at the specificity of the frozen green beans: French style. So fancy.
Many Recipes from the Archives
Since I’m always either developing new recipes or searching for new recipes for all of us, I rarely go back into my files or even into my own books. But with the holidays at our collective doorstep and the notification that I’ve published 225 editions of this newsletter — cue the trumpets, ready the fanfare — I thought I should take a peek at what’s in the xoxoDorie archives (which are open all the time to you wonderful readers who are paid subscribers). I knew I wasn’t going to find a recipe for turkey — I don’t think I’ve ever created a recipe for a whole (or even a part of a) turkey — but I was surprised by all the Thanksgiving-y recipes I did find.
There aren’t as many right-for-Thanksgiving side dishes as I’d expected — although one of my all-time favorites is there: Endives, Apples and Grapes. And a dish that I adore, one that I make all through the cold months and often on Thanksgiving — I used to serve it as an alternative to turkey, but even the turkey-eaters were scooping it onto their plates — is Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good, a treasured recipe.
There are terrific pre-feast nibbles. In fact, I was surprised to see one article, written in Paris, that rounded-up four dishes that I love: Gougères (bien sûr), Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts, Mustard Bâtons (so easy/so good) and Salmon Rillettes (which I’m making next week).
And a trove of post-feast desserts. I’m thinking about the Cocoa-Cranberry Linzer Tart, for our own dinner — just because it’s Thanksgiving doesn’t mean we can’t have chocolate. I love my friend Jaíne Mackievicz’s orange cake — and so did the judges on the Julia Child Challenge (I also love her newsletter!) Also the whimsical Rose and Cardamom Cake from Aleksandra Crapanzano. And Gesine Bullock-Prado’s beautiful Maple Syrup Bundt Cake.
And of course, my Pumpkin Pie — THE CORRECTED RECIPE (this recipe is open to everyone — please share it).
And Some Recipes to Bookend the Bird
Having had so much fun skimming through the archives, I thought I might riffle through the pages of some of my own books in search of recipes I love but might not have made recently. It was sweet to take this little stroll down memory lane — rewarding too: I found some just-right dishes for beginnings and endings (I’ve chosen super-simple ones, i.e., the kind I love most) with a few middles in between.
I’ve made a collection of printable recipes for you for Thanksgiving — you can grab them below. You’ll find recipes for:
Gerard’s Mustard Tart
Hélène’s All-White Salad
Maple-Syrup-and-Mustard Brussels Sprouts
Sweet and Smoky Roasted Carrots
Cranberry-Lemon Eton Mess
White-Wine Poached Pears
Apple Pandowdy
Sharing the Season
As I do every month when I send you my FRIENDSHIP FOOD newsletter, I make a contribution in the name of you, my readers, to an organization that helps feed people. This month, I’m contributing to No Kid Hungry. Thank you so much for making this possible.
Take a deep breath and remember, the most important thing about Thanksgiving is the people around the table.
