Katie Meadow

When did Americans appropriate the term "Chili con Carne" and think it meant beef? It's just meat. In many places chili or chile is made with pork usually cut in chunks. In New Mexico a bowl of chile was referred to as a bowl of red or a bowl of green. Typically it did not have beans. It was a long-cooked flavorful pork, and heat was applied either with fresh roasted green chiles or slurry made from soaked dry red chile pods. A pot of beans was a separate thing, at least among my cohort. It also would be flavored with pork. If memory serves, we would sometimes make a dish that used beef and potatoes. It was called Green Chile beef stew. Also no beans. I know there's a Texas faction that faithfully clings to the concept of chili as a no-beans thing. I'm not a Texan, so I have no opinion about that. Growing up in the Northeast I alway thought of "Chili con Carne" as an Americanized hodgepodge, often using ground beef, beans and a kitchen sink full of stuff. I associated it with pot lucks, college dorms, football games. Often it was sprinkled before serving with some kind of grated American cheese or maybe cheddar. Heat level came from the under or over use of any kind of available ground chile powder. If you ordered it in a diner it would come with saltines. Of course in New Mexico and other southwestern regions it was always served o[with warm tortillas. Oops, forgot to mention later interventions like Firehouse Chili and Firehouse Chili Gumbo. Firehouse chili is supposed to be SMOKY. Firehouse chili gumbo is a kitchen sink explosion of meats, beans, ketchup, vegetables and Louisiana spices using a roux. Hard to imagine, truly.

Not that I would ever make such an awful flavor of ice cream, but if I did I would leave out the 'n'

If you are trying to "understand" saltines you're already barking up the wrong tree.

Growing up we seldom had bread or rolls with dinner. The exception would be if soup or salad was the main course. If I was served a bowl of mussels or steamed clams without crusty rustic bread my tears would dilute the broth. And how sad would it be to have any kind of borscht without fresh rye bread? I don't think I've ever had real Texas Toast, but i imagine it would be good with BBQ. Better I'm sure than that floppy stuff that typically accompanies ribs, etc.

Peanut oil is not flavorless, at least to my tastebuds. I like Golden Lion peanut oil for most of my Chinese stir-fries. I think it is relatively miild compared to Planters. I use a lot of it and buy the large size in Asian groceries; not all of them carry it though. I took a Thai cooking class and my teacher swore by Golden Lion. I like rice bran oil too, but it would be pricey used in the quantities I use peanut oil. I've never deep fried anything in recent memory, so that's a mystery category for me. The neutral oil I prefer is Sunflower. Grapeseed I like for some baking when a recipe calls for neutral oil rather than butter. Canola I truly find disgusting. I don't understand why so many recipes call for it. To me it tastes like fish. When cooking Italian or with tomatoes and for most salad dressing I pretty much always use olive oil. I can't imagine making hummus without olive oil!

My French speaking husband will find this hilarious. Aside from Japanese restaurants I've only eaten eel once; A rather reclusive fisherman and eeler who has a beach house where my husband's family has theirs once gave us a peeled and prepped one (salt water). My MIL, who was a dreadful cook, managed to simply sauté it in butter and it was delicious. The most eels I've ever seen in one place was the Rialto market in Venice. Live baby eels in barrel after barrel, bought by the fistful, not by me. The baby animal thing seemed to be very big in Venice. We did order those teensy crabs at a restaurant. Really good. So back to eels. There is a book called "The Book of Eels" which has more information than I would ever want. The New Yorker published an excerpt and could barely get through it. But the author does have grasp of his subject. fk

My nephew's wife Jenny has as Italian father who is an immunologist. Jenny's covid bonafides include the fact that when she was little she tagged along with her dad to a conference in Florida and they went sailing with Fauci! I've always swooned when she describes her dad's Feast of the Seven Fishes. I believe there was often Scungilli and always eel, but she rattled off the menu so quickly I don't remember the rest. Due to my own Dad's inane idea of having fun with children, my ears can hear the word "Scungilli" from three thousand miles away.

Sounds like a fabulous party. And then on xmas day you had lox and bagels for breakfast and went out for Chinese later?That was our upper west side xmas day. Tell me, are scungilli sold in markets? My crazy dad used to gross us out by eating them raw when he found them on the beach. Yes, Long Island. Ewww, Daaad!

Yes, I agree, don't even go there. Three years ago I snagged one bag late in the season. I looked forward to next season and indeed, ate plenty. One year later I tried them again and couldn't believe how frighteningly sweet and awful they were! Never again.

For Chinese dishes I like Huy Fong Chili Garlic Sauce. We keep chili crisp around as well. For Bloody Mary's I still find original Tabasco to be my favorite. For general use I use Frank's. I used to use Crystal but now I find it too vinegary; Frank's seems less so, and more complex altogether. Tapatio and Cholula are both good, but they tend to languish in the cupboard. Seeing a long row of interesting and graphic hot sauce bottles is always so fun; I love it when I see someone's collection! But really I would never use most of them. The super hot macho creations are hilarious, blow your head off cartoons. But my head needs to stay on.

Quick wok stir fry with garlic.

I did almost no research when I bought my Bamix. I totally love how simple it is. We've had it for a year, mostly for mashed potatoes and things or for creamed soups. My husband seems to think it's very fun and has never found it hard to clean. Rarely does our blender make an appearance. When I read about the Breville my eyes glaze over. For better or worse I gravitate toward appliances with fewer functions rather than more. Talk about hard to clean: a standard blender.

Probably four for dinner, distant possibility of a fifth. We'll eat at sunset overlooking the ocean. No matter what family members (all my husband's family--my family as spread out on the east coast--end up at the table every year there's typically an even split between turkey eaters and non-turkey eaters. Apps of some kind and Bubbly (in-laws) Roast dry-brined turkey and gravy (us) Mashed fluffy potato-cauliflower (us) Vegetarian entree, maybe spanakopita (in-laws) Green beans (in-laws) Fresh cranberry relish (us) Pickled vegetables (us) Pumpkin pie (in-laws) Blueberry pie (us)

Thanks, @JeanneCakeUnbeknowst to me my husband ended up making RLB's crust for the blueberry pie, but it's good to know her method for a fully pre-baked crust is adaptable. I like her reasons for using parchment paper instead of foil. Interesting concept using two disposable tins, but I don't have those and from where I sit it sounds like an opportunity for drama that I don't need on Thanksgiving!

Adore scallion pancakes when they are good. But at restaurants not so much. Often too greasy and tough. There must be a steep learning curve to get them flaky and tender. So glad to hear you are going home!

We don't do a lot of pie baking in our house. I could put this in the Stupid Questions thread but I don't know if it's stupid enough! Okay. If the filling does not get baked in the shell, and you need a fully baked shell first, do most recipes lend themselves to this type of treatment? We baked the RLB open face blueberry pie. The filling is spectacular. We did not use her crust recipe, instead used one we had never tried before. We did follow her general instructions for pre-baking: after the dough has been refrigerated in then pan she makes a sort of parchment paper shell that fits over the pie shell, puts in beans or pie beads, and bakes that at 425F for 20 minutes. Then she has you remove the parchment and beans, prick the bottom and sides with a fork and bake it for another 5-10 minutes until pale golden. Here's my question: can you fully pre-bake most pie crust recipes this way? We used a pie dough recipe we had never used before and it wasn't very good: it looked picture perfect but was tough. It's unclear if the recipe was simply lousy or the recipe didn't take to this treatment. My husband, adept at breads and biscuits, wants to know can he use the Julia Child pie crust he's had success with before and do the same technique, adjusting for her temp specs? Are certain pie crust recipes that are better than others if you want to fully bake first? Thanks in advance! Sometimes it's staggering how little I know about baking pie, but that's because I rarely practice.

Bakewell tart comes to mind. Also there are plenty of recipes for jam bars, oatmeal jam bars, etc.

My husband just came back from a major shopping and there was no shortage of organic fresh turkeys. He paid about the same as for the last few years. What cost a lot more was everything else on the list. Cauliflower : $5 a head. Romaine lettuce? That was the tipping point. He settled for butter lettuce instead. Weird.

Bia is the bakeware arm of the Cordon Bleu cooking school. I believe the schools are closed, but the products are made in China and still sold in a variety of places. Lots are on eBay. There is some controversy about the levels of lead in their products, so you might be wise to do a little research before committing. Those two casserole dishes are an appealingly simple design. That's about all I know.

I love 'em too. Just ready for pigs in a blanket. Which I believe I ate once many years ago.

I would save on Xanax and just take a healthy dose myself. Then the rest of the guests can do whatever they like to do and who cares?

Yep, uncooked. About 1 12oz bag of berries to one orange. I can't remember what the sugar measure is, maybe 1/2 cup granulated white? I find that it is more useful to test it for the right amount of sugar after it sits around or is refrigerated. It tends to get tarter as it gets cold, making it easier to gauge sweetness level. You can alway add sugar, but you can't take it away. So simple and fresh. I often make it ahead and add chopped walnuts shortly before serving. No fail.

And then you got home safely, turned on the lights, got toasty warm and had a mai tai and peanuts while you heated up your dinner. Goodnight Moon. You did not trip on a back-up appliance. You did not cut yourself on plastic wrap. You did not have a bowl of mush. You had steaming pot pie and then you fell asleep.

@Kim Shook, you have my sympathy. I don't think this holiday is about food. I think it's about tradition and who is sitting at the table--and who may not be sitting there. Control freaks are gonna do their thing, only more so. There are some people you just can't get around, you just have to either make what you want or not care. My husband's father, known to all the little kids as Grandpa John, had one job, and that was to make the cranberries. Grandma Nancy had many jobs, but her most important job was making sure Grandpa John made his Cranberries, which never varied for the thirty plus years I knew him. It was straight out of a fifties Sunset Magazine and was a horror show from one end to the other: canned jelly repurposed into a giant ring studded with a zillion weird things, topped with a zillion more weird things and then covered with a thick drool of sour cream. Talk about cat yak! Not MY mother's idea of cranberries, I'll tell you that. :So every year I made my mother's cranberries which I think came off the back of a package of Ocean Spray and was nothing more than fresh cranberries, sugar and a fresh orange, blended up into a tart, toothy relish. So every year there was Grandpa John's flying saucer and my mother's cranberries, made by yours truly. The trick my husband's big family learned early on: bring whatever you brought last year, eat whatever suits you and tell everyone at the table how good it all is. Then watch your sister- in- law drink way too much wine and tell the same story twice. The two most remembered Thanksgivings were the time the vegetarian gravy hit the picture window, which half the table thought was the best place for it, and the time the transformer outside blew in a hail of fireworks and the kids took slices of pie to the workers who restored the power at about 11 pm after five dark hours. The moral of the story is be thrilled if you don't have too much to do and get as many laughs as you can out of the day. Cheers!

Do you hate caviar too? If so you are a very cheap date.