The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

Staying true to this years traditional thanksgiving menu, I couldn’t fathom having anything but apple and pumpkin pie. While I had thoughts early on of pecans and all of the different varieties of pies I could have potentially made with them,  I just couldn’t bring myself to this sort of nonsensical experimentation. There was too much at steak and the risk of failure was just too great. Not to mention that nothing about pecan pie says Canadian harvest, no pecan pie was way too American for my thanksgiving dinner.

You have to be careful with desserts and by this I mean because they come at the end of a meal they have the power to either be the perfect end to a perfect meal if they are a success following a successful meal, redeem the meal if they are a success and the meal wasn’t, or depreciate an incredible meal if they are disastrous.

To avoid any negative results, if the recipe allows it, I try to make the dessert course the day before. It really make everything so much easier on the day and if you are like me and enjoy the challenge of a completely home made meal I would recommend doing as much in advance as possible. These pies were both made the day before and both held up beautifully until we ate them the following evening.

When you make just a few side dishes to accompany your thanksgiving dinner, it’s important to make sure that you have the right quantity. I don’t believe in going crazy but it may be wise to test out a few sides before you cook them on actual thanksgiving so that you can not only make sure that they are as good as possible but also to determine the quantity you will need when serving a crowd. I made the mistake of not doing this and felt that I could have have perhaps made a bit more. At least in the leek department.

I was experimenting with the leeks, knowing how much I love them as an addition to any dinner involving poultry but not quite sure if the rest of my family would be in agreement, and I cold have definitely made a few more. That being said you want to make sure that you have a braising dish that’s large enough to hold the amount of leeks you make in one single layer, without having to stack them.

Turkey is one of those things that once you’ve done it once and are over the fear of actually cooking it, you realize that there was nothing to really be afraid of in the first place. Thanksgiving is actually a fairly easy meal to bring together, most of the smaller details like vegetable sides can be done in advance and the gravy is relatively simple to make once the turkey is out of the oven resting. As I mentioned in the menu post I like to keep things simple and fairly traditional. The focus of the meal is always the turkey, the vegetables that you serve on the side could not compete so why stress yourself out with fancy sides when you could be enjoying some wine with your guests?

I feel like I should apologize in advance for the quality of these thanksgiving photographs. As thanksgivings go, there was just too much to remember this weekend, something had to be forgotten and this year it was my camera. I’m more than just a little disappointed about this and even contemplated just skipping these posts, but I came to the conclusion that too much hard work went into it, so I’m going to pretend these photos are exceptionally beautiful, you know the kind you would see here or here and call it a day.

I’m pretty excited that this years Thanksgiving dinner had very few hiccups. I think this was in part due to my busy work schedule which allowed me no time to over think the menu, make changes and generally complicate the process. I have a major tendency to over think things and in most instances this leads to more problems than inspired ideas. But there were definitely a few things I would change if I could have. For example, I would not have bothered running out to the store last minute on Sunday afternoon and avoided the extremely annoying human being who decided to merge right into my car, minor though it was and not my fault, that would consume my precious cooking time and result in the making of what I call “anger pies”. My mother has since informed me that I’m no longer allowed to make pies at her house. I told her that would result in no more Natalie pies, she seemed not really to care about that but I bet she changes her tune come Christmas time-that woman loves her pie.

Sometimes cucumbers just save the day. Last night I came home thoroughly exhausted, to the point where I couldn’t even fathom cooking because that would mean I would be standing for at least a half hour, which at that moment seemed next to impossible. Just the thought of it was sending shockwaves of rejection through my body, and as perplexing as it was, I was even too exhausted to think about it. This is quite unusual for me-the not wanting to cook part-even after the longest day in the world I still can’t wait to get into my kitchen.

I knew I had to grab something fast before I collapsed into an exhausted coma and I remembered the cucumber salad I had made the previous night. I’m not a big fan of day old salads, the vegetables never taste that great and take on too much of taste of the dressing. I’m talking about salads without greens of any kind, you know Greek salads or bean salads. But in my run down stupor this didn’t register very high on my priority list and I grabbed the bowl of left over cucumber salad and a piece of bread and collapsed on the couch, without fork or napkin, and started shoveling food into my mouth.

I was rushing home after work yesterday, late as usual and was thinking to myself that there is no way I was going to get the dinner I had planned on the table before midnight. You see, sometimes in my over zealous weekend meal planning mentality I think that I’m capable of doing more than I actually have the energy to do during the week. I make an effort to meal plan on the weekend because otherwise I end up at the grocery store every evening, hungry and without a plan which always results in too much money spent and too little time to actually prepare dinner.

Yesterday evening was progressing in this way but when I finally started to make dinner which was chili and jalapeno corn bread muffins, I realized my tendency to overreact was again getting the better of me. This was seriously going to be a breeze, because corn bread is not that fussy and chili… i mean come on! Easy, right?

I have recently found myself craving chocolate more intensely than ever before. Whether it be choosing a dessert after dinner at a restaurant or a sweet treat to accompany a small cup of coffee to get me through the 3pm work day lull- chocolate is what has been tempting me recently.

When I still lived in San Francisco, there was one place where I would always lose my self control: the Tartine bakery. There’s nothing better than than grabbing a few of their amazing cookies and spending the afternoon laying around Dolores park. When I found myself back in the bay area last week for the Blog Her Food conference, I was extremely disappointed that I was unable to make it to Tartine. I felt that it was the one things I let slip by and shouldn’t have. Ahhh regret. Of course it is always impossible to get to all the the places I adore in the course of one already over packed weekend, but I found myself regretting this one the most.

I’ve heard the rumors, they’ve been floating around for a while and I have to say have really been hoping that they weren’t true. But alas this mornings NY Times has confirmed that after 59 years Gourmet magazine will be stopping its monthly publications after their November issue. Why Conde Nast? Why? AND why Gourmet?

There was just something about the visual appeal of Gourmets glossy food photography that was something I looked forward to receiving each and every issue for. I will miss you Gourmet!

I’m sure everyone has a vegetable that for one reason or another they grew up fearing or at the bare minimum regarded with a certain amount of hesitation. For me fear is definitely an accurate description of my feelings towards fennel growing up. Until maybe six years ago I had never to my knowledge actually even tasted it, as I was raised to believe that nothing good could come of it.

I’m not sure what fennel did to my mother but the reaction she gives when you mention a recipe that features it leads me to speculate that it was definitely traumatic. Funny thing is that on the many occaisins that I have spent in the small town in southern Germany where she grew up, I don’t think I have ever had anything made with it. I’m guessing that’s probably a good thing.