Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, and one of the reasons I love it so much is because of the food we enjoyed over the years. My mother died in 2007, but her touch on the holidays has lived on in the dishes we still prepare year after year. I’m sure that everyone thinks that their mother’s dressing, mashed potatoes or roasted turkey is the best. But I’m sorry, you’re all wrong. My mother’s recipes are definitely better than yours… 😉
At the top of the feast is mashed potatoes, and Mom didn’t cut any corners here. She boiled and mashed by hand every potato and then added the rest of the ingredients, including copious amounts of butter. Her potatoes were always rich, creamy and unhealthy — but extremely delicious!
Next on the list was her dressing, and this recipe was a hand-me-down from my grandmother. It combined cornbread, lightly stale white bread and Hungry Jack biscuits. Throw in some sauteed onions and celery, a lot of chicken broth, a few beaten eggs and just the right amount of seasoning and you have Thanksgiving magic. No holiday meal in our home has been complete without this culinary wonder.
My now ex-wife threw added her favorite, which was a sweet potato casserole. I’d admit that it’s tasty, but it was packed with enough sugar to qualify it as Halloween candy. It was tasty, but my endocrinologist would not want me to add this to my plate on Thursday. He would much rather me take a scoop of my wife, Daryl’s, squash casserole, which relies on fresh squash and a lot of sour cream. I’m sure we’ll be taking a dish of this to my sister-in-law’s house for lunch.
My addition to the feast has always been my whole cranberry sauce. It’s so simple that I can’t believe more people don’t make it instead of cutting a slice of sauce from a can. I’m sorry, but cranberries never grew in cans, and I’ve never gotten why people prefer cranberry jelly to the real thing. All you need is a back of fresh cranberries, a cup of sugar (or other sweetener) and a cup of water. Put them in a pot and boil them until the cranberries all pop. If you want a kick of orange, you can always throw in some orange zest, and my stepmother adds a bit of Grand Marnier to make it an adults-only treat.
Of course, the hero of the Thanksgiving meal is the turkey, and Mom also made that dish to perfection. Except I think I’ve finally improved on it. Several years before she died, we got an idea from a radio host named Kim Peterson (formerly of WGST and now appearing weekdays on WFOM in metro Atlanta). He suggested basting the turkey with white wine, and he said to get a big jug of wine so you could give a glug-glug of wine to the turkey and then a glug-glug of wine to yourself. By the time you got through the entire jug, both you and the turkey would be thoroughly cooked. But the real treat, he said, was that the turkey would be brown and crispy on the outside and so juicy on the inside that the turkey would squirt when you sliced it. He was right — the turkey actually squirted juices when we sliced it that first year, and I’ve sworn by that basting trick ever since.
Now, however, I brine my turkey. As I write this post, my turkey has been sitting in brine for more than two days, and when I pull it from the brine Thursday morning, it will be bursting with flavor, including the handful of fresh basil I added from the plants growing on my balcony. I’ll start by smoking it for a few hours on my Traeger grill, and then I’ll transfer it to a roasting pan and finish it in the Traeger, basting it frequently with some white wine I picked up at Walmart. There may be a few glug-glugs for me along the way, too.
Like I said, I’m sure your family traditions are just as precious to you as mine are to me. If you have any suggestions you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them. I just hope you enjoy your holiday as much as I’ll enjoy mine. And if your mother is still with you, be sure to give her an extra hug and tell her how much those family meals mean to you. I’d give anything if I could do the same with my Mom today.
