Katie Meadow

I realize now my brain has holiday addle, or worse. I did not make an apple calvados cake yesterday. I made an apple cake with sambuca! But I do have a couple of recipes for apple cake with calvados. One is a David Lebovitz recipe called Apple Calvados Cake. The other is from Acadiana Table and is called Apple Gateau with Calvados Creme. I've made the Lebovitz one and it was good. The other sounds dreamy; it occurs to me you could make the calvados sauce and it would be great simply poured over a baked apple. I believe both are easily available on their respective websites. I make a lot of apple cakes in the winter.

Thanks, I also have a dedicated carbon steel omelet pan that I have used for over 30 years and is, in my estimation, perfect. I hope this new pan works as well for as long. By that time I will be 107. I'm also keeping my cast iron skillets in good condition, so when the time is right that day comes I will hit myself over the head with one of those, if I can still lift it. That should be a fitting end. By then my omelet pan will probably be useless because there will be so few chickens left without avian flu that eggs will be unaffordable for all of us in the 99.99 percent.

Perfect xmas dinner for the two of us: To start, homemade cheese straws left over from xmas eve party and a glass of gifted Rittenhouse rye. For dinner, gifted Domingo Rojo beans from my Napa SIL (she's got my number) made into a New Mexico style beans over rice. Pickled veg, also leftover from the party. And for dessert an apple calvados cake made after opening presents. That's not quite correct. It was intended for dessert, but, unable to resist, we ate it warm from the oven a couple of hours BEFORE dinner. Gift of note from my husband: a 12 inch carbon steel skillet. Gorgeous.

To be fair I must amend my remarks. The SIL who can't cook has become a vegan and I wouldn't put it past her to omit butter from whatever she ends up making. So let's be charitable and say that's the cause of any crisp failure. And I adore her, no matter what.

Behind the bubbly: evil greed yes, surprising not so much.

We will be six boomers and six millennials plus some partners. Half, cutting across the generations, are vegetarians. There will be an eggplant parm, various salads and sides, and one of my nephews makes dynamite sri racha chicken wings. Our contributions will be cheese straws from Edna Lewis and smoky roast almonds to add to the apps, raw carrot salad that is Indianish and pickled vegetables. The sister-in-law who can't cook is doing dessert this year. I hope she doesn't bring her standard, which is a pear crisp of sorts that typically has undercooked under-ripe pears and oats that somehow stubbornly remain soggy. But there will be lots of Napa Valley wines and it will be a party. Cheers!

I second NY Noodletown. I've never had a bad time there. For chocolate, my favorite in all the world so far is Neuhaus, from Belgium. I'm not in NY nearly as much as I used to be, but I always made a detour to their Lexington Ave store. I notice they now have two other venues, one on Madison and another at Grand Central Station. Of course their chocolates can be mailed. And if you find yourself at Grand Central you can gawk at the amazing architecture and have lunch at the Grand Central Oyster Bar.

In my college years in New Mexico, when it was the right time of year, we would take a large blanket and drive up into the lower hills of the Sandia Mountains in search of piñon pine trees. We'd lay the blanket carefully under the tree and shake the limbs. Instant pine nuts.

Yes to Papaya King! Growing up on West 86th, Gray's Papaya was a short walk. But it didn't have the magic of Papaya King, which was a crosstown bus away. Glad to hear they reopened but I don't get to NY as often as I used to. But if I could go back in time it would be to Lichtman's Bakery, which was half a block from our apartment.

@Shelby I'm just curious. Last night I read a long piece in the Nation magazine about Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD. It describes the westward movement of the disease in deer and discusses at length the possibility of it jumping to humans (zoonotic). In some states like CO and WI it's so pervasive that every deer killed must be tested before you can eat it. Are hunters in your area dealing with that? I knew absolutely nothing about this until I read the article. Now I know more than I wish I did.

All the people I know who do a seven fishes dinner say you MUST have eel! Maybe just an old nonna's tale?

Notable only because it happens only once a year on the morning after Thanksgiving: Warm apple and pecan slices of pie, thanks to my sister in law who baked four pies for dinner last night. Delicious with coffee and foamed milk. Perfect view of Bodega Bay, sunshine, not windy. Happy TG to all.

I use 1.25 cups Bob's medium grind cornmeal to .75 cup AP flour. 2 cups total, like you do. I have never soaked cornmeal first. I love the texture as is. No idea about the buttermilk question.

@liuzhou I hope there's no margarine in it.

I can't tell you much, I'm not sure a recipe ever existed. The chestnuts are a major pain and we prepped them a day ahead. Make crosses on the flat side (use a very sharp pointy knife and take care not to cut off your fingers), throw in boiling water for 15 minutes. Grab with a towel before each is cool and peel off the husk. The rest is basic: sauté onion and celery in a stick or two of butter. Add a forklift of dry croutons. At some point add lot of salt and pepper, and a blizzard of fresh parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, then a couple or three cubed tart apples. Oh, my quantities are for stuffing a large turkey plus roasting a panful of dressing separately for the vegetarians. The fresh herbs were like the song says;. It was the only way I could remember which ones to put in. Memory tells me needed to add just a bit of moisture to it. My husband and I abandoned stuffing and dressing years ago when we realized we were the most enthusiastic about it anyway. Always be simplifying. It was pretty good, though, with gravy.

I always thought starch was the point. At least for my in-laws, TG has been a communal affair: During peak years, when there were three teenage boys at the table, it seemed like there was nothing BUT starch. Mashed potatoes, (which resembled warm cement or simply pavement, depending upon which teenage boy made them), baked yams, chestnut bread stuffing, a wild rice casserole, sliced bread and five pies. And, since at least half the table were vegetarians, always a veg entree that typically relied on pasta and cheese. Yes, there might be stringbeans and salad put together haphazardly. When my FIL was alive he was responsible for a weird cranberry jello salad that he made dutifully from the same 1950's Sunset Magazine recipe year after year. It was a godawful logroll of canned and powdered products, so I always made a fresh cranberry relish. Sometime during the late 20th century my MIL ceded the job of turkey and stuffing to my husband and me. Clockwork now. During the past decade the testosterone has dropped due to some timely and untimely demises and the fact that the boys are scattered about the country, my daughter and her family stay in Atlanta, and my niece has often been the only young person. This year she and her partner have invited two friends, so there will be four energized twenty-somethings. I'm told the friends like to cook, so fingers crossed for some good surprises. I've now ceded the turkey entirely to my husband (I can't overstate the benefits of marrying a younger man!) and now my only job (praise be) is my mother's raw cranberry and orange relish which I can't even eat anymore. And yes, the recipe came straight off the the old Ocean Spray package.

It does.

Do you really mean 80 months? That's more than six years. Personally, I'd toss it and spring for a fresh bag.

And Ill just add, for no good reason at all, that when I was in the hospital for five or six days last February the food was the absolutely worst I have ever encountered, and I had no desire to post anything to anyone from that sick bed.

Belated condolences. You used to mention her all the time. Then you stopped posting for a long while, and when you came back you did not mention Sweetie any more. So I wondered. So sorry to have this confirmed. Every time I notice a new post on the Hospital Food topic my heart skips a beat . But I remind myself that if a patient has enough energy to whine about the hospital food that can be a good sign.

Yeah, when hell freezes over I'll make a dobos torte. I'm not a baker. My aspirations don't reach much farther than a loaf of quick bread. or a basic apple cake. My husband is the flour and water guy, but he doesn't really do sweets. He makes a great rustic round, a white sandwich bread, brioche bread, biscuits and pizza. At this point in my life what little cooking energy I possess goes into actual food.

Today we had my favorite pre-TG meal: turkey necks in brodo. We make a turkey every year for the holiday. It used to be a major project my husband and I would make together. Elaborate and time consuming. He makes it now, but pretty simple, no drama like in the old days. His gravy is fantastic. We used to just make stock for the gravy with the neck, the day of. I really don't care for turkey meat but broth made from a roast turkey carcass is my Kryptonite; it brings me to my knees. Now, a week or so before the holiday I buy some wings and necks and roast them, them put them in a stockpot to make enough broth to freeze for the gravy plus a couple of extra quarts. We splurged for dinner and were happily up to our necks in broth. I make a bigger batch with the carcass after TG. Sometimes my neighbor gives me his carcass, so I have a double batch! I've given him a quart of stock afterwards, but I'm always worried he's going to like it so much he'll start making his own, but thank god he hasn't caught my addiction. He just wants the meat. Good for him!

@Smithy, you had me at dobos torte. I grew up in NY a half block from the best bakery on earth. The owner was Lithuanian I believe, but he made the most perfect dobos torte. It was my mother's favorite pastry. Mmmm, that hard caramel topping......

So sorry to hear this. Best wishes to you and Ed, and fingers crossed he can continue to cook for you. Since breaking my hip earlier this year I don't like standing still next to the stove. Our solution is that I do a lot of chopping and prep work sitting at the kitchen table. Then I tell my husband what to do with it all. He's doing quite well, but when I ask him to describe the cooking temp, he has no ability to distinguish between a low simmer and a high boil. He just says, "It's bubbling," So at that point I have walk over to the stove and check it out. Perceiving the Liquid level in the pot is also problematic, even if I say "2 inches above the beans." The learning curve, when it comes to cooking, seems to get slower with age, or maybe it's just him. This doesn't not apply to bread and biscuits, of which he is a wizard and I know zero.

Me? I would make lime marmalade. And maybe instead of lemons you could preserve limes with salt? I haven't seen that done, but why wouldn't it be good for something? What about a lime pickle if you like Indian dahl or curries?