Thanksgiving at the AfterTaste* Household

*Real household withheld for obvious purposes.

With Halloween behind us, my thoughts dwell not on ghouls, frightening little children dressed as Spongebob Squarepants hopped up on artificial sweeteners, my dog Moo Shu dressed as a pumpkin, and bucket loads of chocolate, but rather, they fast forward to the Superbowl of culinary holidays…Thanksgiving. 

Ahhh, Thanksgiving in the AfterTaste household, it’ll be upon us before you can say, “hey, I think something’s burning.”

But I exaggerate…Thanksgiving in my home has usually been a hectic, but well-executed affair. From the days when my mom taught me how to properly dice onions to last year when I made an entire Thanksgiving dinner on my own for the first time (that wasn’t the original plan, it just happened to work out that way), I’ve loved Thanksgiving and seen it as the cooking challenge of all cooking challenges (yes, even more so than Iron Chef, there I said it). I also love it because it’s the only holiday where I don’t have to sit down and spend hours conceiving the menu. Every year we serve the same dishes and it’s that tradition (of which I had few growing up) that I adore and look forward to with child-like anticipation.

Here is our menu:

• Spinach-cashew dip with crudité (mushrooms, carrots, celery) and potato chips 
• Turkey (although some years we only made a turkey breast since most of my family only eat white meat, weird, I know), gravy, and cranberry sauce
• Sausage chestnut stuffing (baked in a pan, slightly toasty and spongy from the bread cubes, slightly crumbly from the salty sausage and the sweet chopped chestnuts)
• Barley “rice” (dry barley-shaped pasta from Manischewitz that’s really hard to find for some reason) with butter, mushrooms, and thyme
• Mashed sweet potatoes with mini marshmallows baked on top
• Roasted garlic mashed potatoes
• 1 vegetable dish (usually string beans with garlic, lemon juice, and almonds)
• Pies (apple and pumpkin)

For the hors d’oeuvres, additions to the dip may change sometimes (one year we also had shrimp cocktail, another year spiced cashews) and the vegetable dish often varies (from broccoli rabe and garlic to brussel sprouts with pancetta), but the rest of the menu has been the same for the past 13-14 years. 

I pretty much start writing out my grocery lists beginning in mid-October. That’s what I do when I’m bored, like during a meeting or while waiting to see my doctor. That’s my version of doodling. Other people sketch hearts and cubes, I list Thanksgiving dinner ingredients.

1. Celery (1 bunch)
2. Carrots (1 bunch or 2 bags baby carrots)
3. Thyme
4. Rosemary
5. Cremini mushrooms (2 boxes)
6. Frozen chopped spinach (1 box)
7. Onions (3)

Etc., etc., and so on…

Recipes for some of these dishes (or maybe all of them depending on how industrious I feel) will be appearing in the next couple of weeks so be on the look out!

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