Let me begin by saying - Happy Thanksgiving! This is a day to eat way too much, to spend time with family and friends, to try not to kill family and friends and, to drink (maybe too much). For me, Thanksgiving is always great fun. For one, there is rarely any fighting. Because I come from a long line of WASPs, we tend to keep all of our dissatisfaction and anger bottled up inside. Secondly, the food is always superb. My step mother is a brilliant cook of the gourmet variety. Lastly, the friends and family that I spend time with on Thanksgiving are intelligent, thoughtful, creative and very very funny. This Thanksgiving, I was free of the perils of driving to Yellow Springs. Wendy, who my family views as my adopted sister, drove. And, I was not even responsible for taking anything with me - not even pie. So all in all, it was a lovely stress free holiday. Black Friday may be a completely different story. I do, in fact, work at Williams-Sonoma for a bit so it could get a little crazy!
There were two pies offered up at Thanksgiving (both recipes from "Food and Wine" and both made by my stepmother). The first was a sweet potato pie with a pecan ginger graham cracker crust. This pie was incredible. In my pie experience, I have found that I prefer sweet potato pie to pumpkin pie. This pie confirmed that belief. The second pie was a pecan pie. Pecan pie happens to be one of my father's favorite desserts. It also happens that his birthday is near Thanksgiving. So generally, we have pecan pie, as well as, another dessert. This pie was excellent. For a moment, I had thought I might have time to make a pie to take along. I was wrong.
For my next pie experience, I plan on making a pear-cranberry pie. This seems like a great seasonal pie choice. And since I can't get behind pumpkin pie, this may be the one. Although, I plan on taking another go at the salty caramel apple pie. I made this pie a week ago (the photo above). It was a lovely apple pie. But the general opinion was that it was not caramely enough. And the caramel sauce was full of salty goodness by itself but mixed with the apples it was not salty enough. So salty caramel apple pie will make an appearance at least one more time.
But tonight, my belly is full of non-traditional Thanksgiving fare. There were mini spinach pies with cheddar crusts and red wine to begin. The first course was made up of three types of handmade ravioli: pumpkin, four cheese and carrot with ricotta (my favorite) and red wine. The main course was comprised of roasted pork, squash gratin, green beans with caramelized onions, homemade applesauce with orange and more lovely red wine. All prepared by a woman who might very well be my hero in the kitchen. As you can tell, there was no shortage of wine. I enjoy wine but know virtually nothing about it. My father knows what is going on there and believes in refilling wine glasses throughout the meal. So it probably was a very good thing that I did not drive.
It was a good day - a day to forget the little dramas, the bigger dramas or whatever existential crisis you may be suffering from (oh sorry that's just me). It was a day to eat or drink yourself silly and not feel guilty. Because...after all... It was Thanksgiving!
my favorite holiday movie - "Home for the Holidays"
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