Bonnie, Bryan & Eric: We are wishing all of you a deliciously wonderful turkey day tomorrow. And instead of reviewing a product this week, we wanted to share some Thanksgiving recollections and, more importantly, to ask you to share yours with all of us – both the memorable and the forgettable ones.
For instance:
• What’s your traditional holiday food (other than turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce) that must be on your holiday table? And, if you’re so inclined, how about sharing the recipe with us. We’re pretty traditional, preparing the regulars and deciding on the other sides by what looks fresh in the farmers’ market or at our local farm stand.
• Share an amusing tale about a food item that wasn’t completely cooked or never made it to the table. At our home, we call an undercooked turkey a “Harriet.”
One Thanksgiving, we all were called to the table to eat. We began to dig into the food that was passed around the table as Aunt Harriet placed the 26-pound bird in front of Uncle Ben to carve. He attempted to cut into the giant turkey, when he realized it was raw, literally raw.
Blame went back and forth, as it seemed someone had forgotten to turn on the oven.
“I thought you put the turkey in the oven.”
“I did, but I thought you had turned on the oven….”
We all giggled, and made do from the rest of the holiday offerings.
Hence, the name.
• Share a story about celebrating this all-American holiday out of the country. While Eric was studying hospitality abroad in Den Haag (The Hague, The Netherlands), we had some Thanksgiving celebrations at our relative’s home in Brussels, Belgium (about 1½ hours by train from Den Haag). Eric invited some classmates from Sweden, Israel, Spain, Bulgaria and Tunisia to experience the multicourse, very filling meal. Smart move to invite those studying hospitality, as they all pitched in to cook and clean up without even being asked!
• Share a story about cooking the multicourse meal in a small or under-equipped kitchen. Necessity is certainly the impetus for creativity, as Bonnie found when she prepared a full holiday meal in Bryan’s brand new home, sans many needed pots, pans, utensils and serving dishes.
Bonnie coped, adapting to what was there and found odds ’n ends around the house to serve foods in…
• Share what you’re thankful for this year as we’ve all been affected to some extent by economic hardships. The turkey might be smaller and the additions fewer, but the friends and family surrounding you are all that truly matter.
The Bite of the Best team is very thankful this year that we’re all in the same place and sharing Thanksgiving cooking and dinner together. And we’re thankful for having all of you who follow us on our ever-growing site.
Hi Bonnie, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones as well. Here are two recipes I can share with you:
Love & Best De-lishes, Ilene Spector
YUM YUM SISTERS’ THAI CASHEWS
1 TABLESPOON PEANUT OR VEGETABLE OIL
ONE-HALF POUND RAW CASHEWS
1 TABLESPOON FINELY MINCED GARLIC (I USE THE FINELY CRUSHED IN A JAR)
CRUSHED RED PEPPER OR GROUND RED PEPPER TO TASTE (BE CAREFUL!
1 TEASPOON SUGAR
3/4 TEASPOON SALT
HEAT A WOK OR FRY PAN OVER MEDIUM-LOW HEAT. ADD THE OIL AND ROTATE THE PAN TO COAT EVENLY. WHEN OIL IS HOT, ADD THE NUTS, GARLIC AND RED PEPPER AND STIR-FRY UNTIL NUTS ARE BROWN, ABOUT 2-3 MINUTES, STIRRING OFTEN. REMOVE FROM HEAT AND IMMEDIATELY ADD THE SUGAR/SALT MIXTURE AND STIR WELL. THESE CAN BE SERVED WARM OR ROOM TEMPERATURE.
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BROCCOLI-SPINACH CASSEROLE
2 boxes frozen broccoli spears, defrosted and drained
1 bag frozen broccoli florets, defrosted and drained
1 box Stouffers frozen spinach souffle, defrosted
1 heaping tablespoon mayonnaise
1 heaping tablespoon sour cream, optional
bread cracker crumbs for garnish
spray olive oil
Place broccoli spears in a shallow lightly greased casserole in one layer, alternating spears so that the florets are all facing out. Combine the spinach souffle, mayonnaise and sour cream, mixing with a spoon. Spoon mixture over broccoli, allowing some of the florets to show. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and spray crumbs lightly with olive oil spray. This can be prepared in advance,(even one day, leaving off bread crumbs until ready to bake)covered and refrigerated. Heat in a 350 degree oven uncovered until hot, but not brown, about 20-25 minutes. Serves 8.
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Thanks for sharing these Ilene! Happy turkey day to you and yours!!
In 1948 my family and I celebrated Thanksgiving in rural Belmont, California. We lived in the incorporated part of the then small town, and went out to the countryside to a small ranch. My mother made excellent pies, which was her
contribution to the feast. The freshly baked pies were set on the windowsill to cool. The women then turned their attention to more pressing issues such as stuffing the turkey and making the vegetable dishes.
When it came time to serve the pies, they discovered that the cats had gotten in and had eaten the crusts off the edges of all the pies. Undaunted, the women heaped freshly whipped cream onto the pies and brought them to the table.
I was so little that I don’t remember this particular incident, but years later my mother confided that she never told my father (who hated cats), about the fiasco that nearly ruined Thanksgiving Dessert.
In a separate note, I don’t know if you’re on my mailing list or not, but I’ve just launched the completely renovated vanilla.com site, which celebrates all tropical foods, flavors and ingredients, the people who produce these foods we all use and often take for granted, the environment where they are grown and the issues that face the tropics and ultimately, all of us. Please sign up if you aren’t already a member. We should look at ways to promote each others’ sites.
Regards,
The VQ
Love Bonnie’s story-sharing idea. Its very much in the spirit of the holiday.
Here’s my memorable Thanksgiving story:
It was my first Thanksgiving as a married woman and we’d decided to invite my widowed father-in-law and his young daughter to enjoy a memorable meal. In my varied collection of cookbooks, I discovered recipes for an elaborate Indonesian Rice Table, which I proceeded to cook over the course of a week. To balance out our guests, we’d also invited my cousin Fran, a close family friend who was divorced and about the same age as my father-in-law. She canceled at the last minute due to illness.
My husband and I really enjoyed the exotic meal, but I had not counted on the culinary sensibilities of his father, who found the satays and curries odd and unturkeylike.
To make up for my faux pas, we invited him back again for turkey and trimmings. This time, my cousin actually came, and a few months later they were married. After that, she took over Thanksgiving dinner preparations.
A few Thanksgivings ago, my mom made a mistake that led to a tradition in our family. She woke up extremely early just to put the turkey in the oven, then went back to bed. I remember her telling me that she was half asleep when she did this and that it almost felt like a dream. Later that day, the alarm went off and I ran to the oven. I’m slightly obsessed with turkey, and I am constantly trying to convince my Mom that we need to have it more often. Why only for the holidays? When I pulled the bird out of the oven, I could tell that something was wrong… it just didn’t look right. It smelled amazing and was perfectly cooked, but looked somewhat deformed – I was very worried. After I inspected the bird, I called my aunt to check it out. Sadly, it took a while for us to figure out that my Mom accidentally cooked the turkey upside down. This ended up being the best mistake she has ever made – the turkey was incredibly tender and moist. Now we cook our turkey upside down every year!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Have a great holiday with your sons. I’m cooking; I really like Thanksgiving and have been hosting it ~35 years. Sometimes the loved ones have changed, there are sometime more and sometimes fewer. Right now, it is fewer, but a great time always. My brother and his family live just one hour away, so they will join us, as usual.
Best,
Shirley
What is your recommendation? Mrs Paul is no longer making the candied sweet potatoes (in the frozen package) any more.
I work in a grocery store that had sold it. With Mrs Paul cutting back, they have stopped the production of these great potatoes as we have loved them for years and will miss them at our Thanksgiving dinners this year.
What ever your recommandation is, I am going to pass it on to my customers.
BAHerbert — Have you tried Ore Ida’s Steam ‘n Mash Cut Sweet Potatoes?
We tried and have recommended them as a Bite of the Best, and under my other hat (my syndicated food review column), we presented our prestigious “Golden Shopping Cart” award to honor the best new food product of the year to this product. To make them “candied” after steaming them, mash them with your favorite sweetener (brown sugar, maple syrup, orange juice…) Hope your turkey day was a scrumptious as ours was!!
My family’s most interesting Thanksgiving was in 1986 when we hosted an Israeli teenager and a Palestinian teenager who were touring the country with a group called “Children of War”. Our family was asked to host the tradtional Thanksgiving dinner because we had four teenagers in our home at the time.The two visitors sat side by side at our dinner table but stated that they would not hesitate to shoot at each other in the sands of Israel. They stated that it was “nothing personal” … all political. It was a very educational experience!
This is the first time I have been to this site. WOW, I can see how hwlpful it will be for me to jump on the computer and get my questions answered and to get some great ideas for preparing meals for the family. Very exciting!
Better than the Best is what this Bite of the Best actually represents. Yea! One honest site!
I read that you provide coupons for some products. I’m interested. How do I receive these?
Where do I receive information about your coupons provided here as advertised? Mary Senglaub
Mary, Nice of you to participate on Bite of the Best. We do offer a chance to win coupons in our Marketplace – but you’ll need to wait until midnight tonight to enter December’s giveaways. (November’s just ended at noon today). One other thing, you must be a registered user of http://www.BiteoftheBest.com to enter the contests…
Do take a chance – we’ve got lots of goodies (including coupons) that we giveaway monthly….and so far we’ve given away about $50,000 worth of goodies!
Broccoli,Spinich Caserole sounds fabulous! Can’t wait to tryn it!!!!
I wold love COUPONS.
I love the ease it takes to prepare your steamfresh products.
Late to the party — but the best Thanksgiving story I have is the one requiring a rental van to take my mother and step-father, my husband, younger daughter and me to the UC Santa Cruz campus — hauling luggage, dishes, glasses, flatware, pots, pans, tablecloths, kitchen linens, frozen turkey and all the items needed to prepare our feast in the dormitory kitchen — three refrigerators and two stoves helped — my mother taught the girls how to make the pumpkin pies “her” way and they baked other goodies — the meal was wonderful and wnadering that beautiful campus in near solitde was rewaring — extra pies were shared with some of her friends who were also celebrating on campus. One of our more interesting holidays, certainly!