Gemma Seymour: 1. The turkey. In my case, I prefer to spatchcock my turkeys, for fast and even cooking. The only problem with this is that most home ovens are large enough to accommodate only a smaller turkey, if you're going to cut out the backbone, crack the breastbone, and squash it flat on a roasting pan. The back can be turned into turkey stock for making the gravy.
I think I've done up to a 14-pound turkey (packaged) that way, but for small families, the smallest turkey you'll find is about 10-11 pounds packaged, and that makes plenty.
In my youth, my grandmother would have as many as 26 to 30 people - the entire family - in her house, and she would get as large a turkey as she could find, usually in the 24-to-26-pound range. My grandmother's turkey would take hours and hours to roast. Mine goes from raw to perfectly cooked and on the table in 1.5 to 2 hours, tops, which makes it so much easier.
When my ex and I bought a house and hosted Thanksgiving for both our families for the first time, we had 26 for dinner, but that was the only time we attempted such a large production.
The most interesting thing about spatchcocking is that the turkey (or chicken!) roasts perfectly evenly. No more dried-out breast, and it's so flexible on timing that it's almost impossible to overcook, so you can take that thigh to 180 degrees F and beyond, to get it nice and tender, and the breast will still be juicy.
I've experimented with brining my turkey, but I don't like the way it renders the pan dripping too salty to be used for gravy, and the meat comes out something like deli meat in texture. It's not particularly appealing to me, though it will certainly be juicy.
These days, I cook mostly for myself, so I've taken to just roasting two turkey thighs for Thanksgiving. I'll probably buy two or three packages of them, and over the course of the winter, make roast turkey thighs as many times as I have packages, since they are only available briefly, around this time of year.
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2. I bake my own bread, and so that's usually the first thing to go into the oven on Thanksgiving Day, since it will still be fresh later in the day.
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3. Stuffing/Dressing. This has become something of a specialty for me. I always start with fresh bread cubes. If not my own bread, I like to use Red Hen Baking's Polenta Bread, available at the Brattleboro Food Co-op on select days of the week, since it has a nice touch of corn flavor to it and a great texture.
My stuffing varies from year to year, but the constants are always artisanal quality bread, mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery), nuts, dried fruits, stock (can be turkey or vegetable, if I'm hosting vegans) and amontillado or oloroso sherry. I always cook my stuffing separately, since spatchcocking a turkey leaves it without a cavity to stuff.
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4. I do not do green-bean casserole. I'll eat, if I'm dining with friends, but in my house, it's not a thing. I adore haricots verts and always make them, since they are my favorite vegetable, usually just sautéed with garlic and lemon. But lately, I've been taking Tamar Adler's advice in An Everlasting Meal (one of my favorite books about food), and cooking them until they are really soft, almost mushy.
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5. As far as mashed potatoes and/or sweet potatoes, well, I like them both, but I never go out of my way for them, if I'm already cooking too many dishes. (I always cook too many dishes). Mashed potatoes are one of those things I'm pleased as punch for someone else to make.
I'm really thrilled that the Brattleboro Food Co-op carries Japanese satsuma-imo, which are in my opinion the best of all sweet potatoes, except for possibly the Filipino purple ube. As a Filipina-American, I can't help but adore ube, but I always think of ube as more of a dessert item. In any case, yaki-imo (roasted Japanese sweet potatoes) are divine.
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6. Cranberry sauce. For some reason, my family has a tradition of canned jellied cranberry sauce, though over the years, my aunt, my mother's younger sister, decided she would make sure to make homemade, as well. I like both, but there's just something so delightfully kitschy about the can ridges in the jellied sauce.
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7. Pies! I am, sadly, rubbish at pasty crust, a deficiency I keep saying that I'm going to remedy, but I prefer to have at least an apple pie and a pumpkin pie, if I'm having guests, since that's what my family has always had at a bare minimum. The Brattleboro Food Co-op carries Three Twins Dad's Cardamom ice cream. If you haven't tried that on a tart apple pie yet, you're missing something really special.
But there's something I started doing about a decade ago which has proven to be a smash hit: pineapple pie. You can never have enough pie, especially fruit pies with cardamom (or vanilla) ice cream. My sister will devour an entire pumpkin pie herself if you don't keep an eye on her.
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8. I usually like to make sweet corn. At this time of year, it's difficult to get good fresh corn, so frozen usually stands in, but who cares once you've piled the butter on it, right? Corn is quintessentially North American, like cranberries and turkey.
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9. Gravy. There must be copious amounts of gravy, made from scratch with the pan drippings. When I spatchcock my turkey, I lay it on a bed of mirepoix vegetables, and they caramelize and absorb the turkey juices while the turkey is roasting. Then, I purée them and use them to add substance and flavor to the gravy.
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10. Wine. Thanksgiving means Beaujolais Nouveau, in my house. The Nouveau is released just before Thanksgiving, and yes, I know it's a Georges Duboeuf marketing gimmick, but I still like Nouveau, so there. But there must always be cider, as well, both hard and sweet.
I think it's a nice treat to have a bottle of Madeira around, as well. I once read while dining at Chef Walter Staib's famous City Tavern in Philadelphia that Madeira was George Washington's favorite drink, during the days when he was a frequent customer of the tavern, and so I couldn't resist trying it and immediately became hooked. Anything that was good enough for General George Washington to drink must be good enough for little old me.
My friend and former high-school classmate, Ramin Ganeshram, has recently released a book, The General's Cook, about Washington's personal chef, an enslaved African man who was known as “Hercules”; I'm looking forward to reading it and discovering more about him, about President Washington, and about early America.
As someone who works for social justice in Vermont, it's important to me to remind people that the skills of African-Americans were an integral part of the building of this nation. I'm very proud to be involved with the Vermont African American Heritage Trail as part of that mission.
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11. Since I'm a musician, I have to “go to 11.” All of this gets repeated for Christmas. The only difference is, instead of turkey, I make ham, but one of these days, I mean to roast a goose for Thanksgiving. I had roast goose at Zum Stammtisch in New York City, an old neighborhood German restaurant, when my ex and I brought my grandmother and her grandfather (both born in Germany). I feel cheated that I don't get to eat it more often. Also, at Weihnachtszeit - that's “Christmastime” in German - I've decided that instead of plain wine, I'm making glühwein (German mulled wine), from now on.
I'm 50 percent Filipina, 25 percent German, and 25 percent British. I learned to cook in the kitchens of my German great-grandmother and grandmother, in my German-British mother's kitchen, and I've also learned from my father's Filipino cuisine. My brother, as it turns out, is now a professional cook, and I've learned from him, and not least of all from my ex-wife, who is German-Polish.
Food in my family is sacred, and I hope you've enjoyed reading what I have to say about it.