commotion
thanksgiving, and some odds & ends
Hello again, friends. Did you get to witness the aurora borealis a couple of weeks ago? We went up to a nice dark lookout on Mount Seymour Parkway and at first lamented that it seemed like all the activity had happened before it was dark enough here to see anything, but then things picked up incredibly. We could actually see the movement and the colour of them with the naked eye (though of course, the camera captures it better). We stayed until our hands got too cold for anything so dexterous as taking photos, riding home with the seat warmers on, in awe of the beauty of the universe.
In contrast, I hope everyone reading from the lower mainland and surrounding islands is doing all right after all the flooding we saw with last weekend’s rainstorm. I managed to get out and vote on Saturday, regardless, and I hope you did too if you weren’t one of the record-breaking number of people who voted early! However I’ve also had a cold since Sunday, the first time I’ve been sick since early January 2020, and man, I forgot how much this shit sucks. Why did we think it was fine to go to work like this? I’ve been clocking out early even just working from home, please let me rot on the couch watching X-Files and feeling sorry for myself! Anyway, as I’m away next week I didn’t want to go a whole month without sending you this newsletter— which may not be my finest work, but hopefully it will be typo-free, and nevertheless, it exists. I feel like I’m on the mend and thus far Jeff’s stayed healthy, which is a blessing. Fingers crossed.
We hosted thanksgiving dinner at our place; it felt a bit last minute but it all worked out. I bought a bouquet of flowers, which I always like having in the house but can rarely justify the cost of. Thanksgiving weekend was oddly warm, which I recall happening some year in the past at our old house in East Van, too— sautéing carrots on the barbecue, friends eating with plates on their laps on the back steps. I’d also handed off potatoes, yams, and cranberry sauce to our guests, and I kept looking at my to-do list thinking ‘that can’t be right. I’m missing something.’ But it was oddly freeing to only have to worry about soup, dessert, brussels sprouts, and the trifecta of stuffing, gravy, and turkey (local and free-range from the local butcher and way more expensive than I was expecting, but as a once-a-year expense, I don’t mind).
We mix up a butter with some dijon mustard, lemon juice, and lots of herbs— largely thyme, but a little sage and rosemary, too. This gets used to butter under the turkey skin (a two-person task so the butter doesn’t get contaminated), to cook the onions for the stuffing, and if there’s any left over, to sauté vegetables for soup and whatnot. I really like this butter because it adds a little brightness to a very savoury, rich meal. The turkey gets basted every half hour with a maple glaze, and halfway through cooking time, we drape bacon over it, which helps keep it from drying out. We’ve stopped cooking stuffing inside the turkey as of a few years back, too— everything cooks quicker and more evenly, and then the stuffing is always vegetarian.
I love stuffing, but my favourite part of this dinner has become the brussels sprouts, largely because I don’t make them the same way each year, because they exist to add crunch and green to a plate full of brown. Last year I did a honey miso glaze; this year, I did black garlic caraway brown butter with toasted pumpkin seeds (I skipped the tahini for thanksgiving). sometimes I like to add pomegranate to this for contrast, but with everything else we had to do I decided I couldn’t be bothered de-seeding a pomegranate— especially since they cost like, $5 each. Bro, someone should be paying me to do all that work!
We started off with ice wine and a small cheese plate— just manchego, goat cheese, and some honey, garlic jelly, and marcona almonds. We’ve found that dessert wines often go undrunk at the end of the meal, but they work very well at the beginning, with tangy, salty cheese. This year I went simple with the soup, roasted butternut squash with red lentil and coriander and cumin, and a little chili miso for serving. Tim and Liang brought mashed potatoes and celeriac, and this beautiful sweet potato roast with chermoula. When I asked Steph to make the cranberry sauce, I told her that I usually put a little orange zest in, and she, not in possession of a zester, confessed that she attempted to zest an orange using a serrated knife. (She said it did not work very well and will probably buy a zester now.) As usual, I put what looked to be a reasonable amount of food on my plate, yet still couldn’t finish the last few bites.
I didn’t have it in me to make a more involved pie or cake, but this pumpkin loaf looked just perfect, and it was. Deb gives a lot of cautions about the size of the loaf pan, but the joy of having a Canadian-made (metric) set of loaf pans is that these tend to be slightly larger than the imperial sizes, so I didn’t have to worry about that, and still got a nice tall loaf. The big crunches of cinnamon sugar on top make it feel more dessert-like than breakfast-like, and I love that it uses the whole can of pumpkin. Jeff made a vegan ice cream to go with it. He hemmed and hawed over the flavour; often we’ll make something with bourbon, or just a plain vanilla if we’re making a pie, but I suggested butterscotch might complement the loaf nicely (and also because I secretly love butterscotch) and it was a hit.
We sat around until ten drinking wine, listening to music while talking and digesting, which is how it should be, and decided to tackle the worst parts of Dish Mountain in the morning. The day after thanksgiving is always about putting the kitchen back in order and making the turkey bones into a nice stock and then a soup. In the past I’ve often been in charge of this, because Jeff’s usually ended up working the Monday, but he actually took the stat this time. Thus I got to sit around on my ass while he made the house smell great. And then we got to eat soup for dinner.
Perhaps predictably, not much cooking happened in the week following thanksgiving dinner, as we had more than enough leftovers to keep us occupied. We got a bag of dollar rack tomatoes that Jeff made into a pasta sauce using some of the leftover herb butter, and I cooked the last few slices of bacon up with some sliced garlic to make a pasta all’amatriciana, a weeknight fave if I have a little extra bacon or pancetta.
I had a few tortillas I’d forgotten about in the fridge, as well as a head of cauliflower to use up, and the obvious solution was this cauliflower shawarma, which I’ve made in the past and loved. The spices used on the cauliflower and onion are delicious, and I always try to make sure that during roasting some of the onions get a bit crispy while some just get roasty-sweet and soft. The sauce I don’t really measure since I make similar ones so often for various purposes— I just put some tahini into a mason jar and add lemon juice, garlic, hot sauce, and cold water until it looks and tastes right. I didn’t have fresh cucumber or lettuce, but pickle was good in a pinch (as if I need excuses to eat more pickles). I had both dill and parsley and enjoyed that mix as well, even if dill isn’t a usual choice for this type of thing. It’s my cobbled-together dinner, I can do what I want.
Oh, I almost forgot that I got around to making the cabbage and mushroom galette, just before thanksgiving, so we had leftovers to eat on the weekend while we prepped. I make this largely as written, just using my own less time-intensive method for the galette dough, which is basically the same but using cold butter instead of frozen, and I add the liquids to the flour/butter mixture all in one go. It always comes out fine. Oh, and I like to add dill to the horseradish sour cream, too. Even if you don’t consider yourself a huge fan of cabbage, this dish is excellent (ask Jeff), and if you do consider yourself a fan of cabbage, well, what are you waiting for?
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so any donations are greatly appreciated. As mentioned, we’re in Seattle next week, so I’ll see you again in *checks notes* November? That can’t be right. Well. Happy Halloween and be safe out there!