Katie Meadow

Great article. I'm sure it escapes no one that the brothers are Darrell and Manning FARMER. Also at the end is a reference to Greg Johnston, who owns Geechie Boy Mills. That's where I get my grits mail ordered. Next time I order I will look to see if he is actually selling the long lost Cocke's Prolific-- meal or grits grind.

The appearance of corn at Thanksgiving has always mystified me. There is no fresh corn in late November in the US. Perhaps in corn growing regions people put corn by in jars, or use frozen corn for whatever corn dishes they think belong on the Thanksgiving table. Now anything made from dried corn I can see: cornbread dressing of a side of grits would be excellent. But my in-laws are very reluctant to give up potatoes. This year they won't be getting mashed potatoes because the nephew who makes them isn't coming. I'm making a version of Smitten Kitchen's Melting Potatoes that works for vegetarians, which four out of the six people at our table tonight will be. This promises to be the most relaxed, quiet holiday in the history of my husband's family. No grandparents,, no millennials, no dogs.

For the first time ever in over 30 years, Thanksgiving will be small and at our house instead of out at the beach. Six people total, instead of the usual 12 to 15. Looking forward to a small turkey! And this year my husband, who does most of the turkey cooking, has the opportunity to satisfy his long time desire for juicy white meat. I'm a dark meat person, so it's never worked out perfectly for the both of us. This time he is going to rotate the turkey during roasting after a dry brine. Our previous turkeys have always been really big and that hasn't been practical. Should be interesting. As my mother in law died in the summer, this will be the first time since since forever that my husband' and siblings have had a holiday with no parent and no sand on the floors and no view of the ocean. And since the absentees are the ones who really eat turkey, I will be left with a lot of stuff for the stockpot.

Mustard orchid it is! The more distance from broccoli the better.

Princess Pamela sounds awesome. You can make a good sweet potato pie yourself. I've made a couple of them in the past few years. Really good. My preference is to use no spices, so it really tastes like the yams it is made from rather than like a wannabe pumpkin pie. The best prep for the yams is to roast them, not boil them. Also if any recipe calls for corn syrup (and I think I've seen some that do) use Steen's instead for better flavor and less sweetness. If memory serves, the recipe I used didn't use either, just sugar. Before I baked my first sweet potato pie I didn't realize that when a recipe calls for them it is a 99 percent chance that they mean what are often labeled as yams; the ones that are orange inside. Sweet potatoes are white, and surprise surprise, actually not as sweet as yams. A true yam is something else entirely. This labeling problem has always irritated me no end. I did bake a pie that used sweet potatoes and yams. I liked it, but it tastes more earthy. I can get behind pork neck bones and rice in a hot minute. I often add neck bones to stock, and the meat that falls off them is really good.

I prefer dark meat as well, but that dish with the mushrooms looks awfully yummy. What is this method?

As a fellow Bay Area and Californian you have no doubt noticed the drop in the frog population, generally, not that I know anything about the various species, but I do know that you hear a lot less croaking in the evenings around ponds or various suburban and country habitats. And, of course, frogs are one of these bellwether critters, another canary in the coal mine. I think I have tasted frog's legs once, and have no memory of flavor. I'm getting squeamish in my old age. Why is it in westerns cowboys (or in other venues campers) roasting on the fire is always a bunny or a snake or a possum, but never a frog? Surely there would have been loads of them near wherever you put up your pup tent. I must have too much time on my hands this morning because now I'm going into the weeds. Would you roast a whole frog or just cut off the legs first like you assume they do in French restaurant, not that I ever to French restaurants. Although I have to admit I always suspected that many places called them frogs legs but subbed the drumstick of the wing. And of course, that's why it is common knowledge that frogs legs taste like chicken. @liuzhou, tell me, in the frog restaurants in China do they eat more than just the legs? I can hardly believe I'm thinking about this while I have a whole Sunday NYT sitting by.

@liuzhou, I hope this isn't too wacky of a question. If the Chinese eat a lot of frog, do they also farm it? Or is it wild caught?

Very much agree. I've pretty much stopped eating beef. Lamb too is not sustainable, but we eat so little of it in America that it would be a more important consideration in some other countries. I buy wild caught gulf shrimp and try to avoid farmed fish unless it is trout from Canada or the US. It leaves us in CA with very limited variety that's sustainably fished, but I am adjusting. Twenty years ago we could buy wild salmon fresh caught on the CA coast for under $10 dollars per pound. There were also abundant fresh sardines. Neither is available any more except once in a great while. Octopus are too charming and brainy, so I don't eat them regardless. As for chocolate, the inclusion of its listing in those ten most problematic foods is worrisome. I haven't really checked out the sources of my staple chocolates, but I really should. The avocados we eat are from the farmer's market, and grown in southern CA; I just don't buy them in the off season, so they are a treat, like good tomatoes.

My dream catch needs to eat the florets too, since I hate broccoli. Oh wait, he already does, but he never gets to eat it because I can't even tolerate the smell. I didn't used to be like this and I don't know how this happened. On the other hand I really like Chinese broccoli (gai lan), stems, leaves the whole package. With lots of garlic, wok-fried. I remember those years when my daughter only ate white food. What a weird phase. But some kids just need to take a stand about food. Until the don't.

@Margaret Pilgrim your minimalist borscht looks fabulous.

Sold! Brilliant reference. And I will use my dill. I think of dill pickles as what I grew up with, but turnips will be new. I'll do a mixed pickle of carrots, beets and turnips. My friend said that there was a wide variety of vegetables used in the pickles he was served, and I'm just assuming that people used whatever was available and looked good. Surprisingly he claims there were never cucumbers. Clearly DL's experience must have been similar. Weirdly I asked another friend who was in Turkey maybe ten years ago claims that she never saw or was served any pickles. As for cocktail hour, Jeff will do something unexpected with some kind of Turkish alcohol.

A friend has come back from Turkey. He makes a great dinner every Friday after Thanksgiving, and often cooks something that represented the food on his most recent trip.He's also into meat, so I have no doubt he will be grilling kabobs, and using lamb and/or beef. Usually he wants no help. He keeps his menu pretty secret until the day. However, this year He's asked me to make some Turkish style pickles to go with, maintaining that they were served various kinds of pickles at every meal. He loves the escabeche that I have made for him. I did a little research on line and discovered that delis and restaurants in Turkey, as well as many home cooks, make a 4-week fermented production, which isn't happening on my watch. So I want to make some quick pickles, a red cabbage pickle and a mixed pickle of some kind. Strangely, the few recipes I found used just about no spices, just vinegar and salt and water, with minimal use of garlic and no fresh herbs. That sounds so plain! I do have some fresh dill, and that might be a worthy addition, but if anyone out there has any suggestions as to what makes Turkish pickles Turkish, do weigh in.

Food for dental work: besides the usual suspects, like ice cream and fruit shakes and mashed potatoes, I like blended green soups. A good chicken broth, lots of spinach, leeks, sorrel, whatever, and a potato or two to thicken all blended up to make it slurpable or drinkable. For when you know you should be getting more fiber and vitamins.

Either I forgot that I read your post about that soup or I missed it altogether. Most likely I forgot and assumed that soup was my idea! This memory thing is a barrel of laughs, at least so far. I can see how adding a couple of cups of ham stock to the chicken stock would make for a tasty broth, and then the meat from the hock or shank could be added shortly before serving. Needless to say I have seen the recipe for this soup but never made it. I always think Keller's recipes sound great, but they are also usually labor intensive and I'm getting lazier as time goes by.

Just one more note about mixing ham and chicken broths, and then I won't have a thing to add. Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc has a recipe for a bean and escarole soup. After sweating the vegetables he adds 8 cups of chicken broth and a ham hock, and continues to cook it for an hour. Then he cuts off the ham from the bone and tosses the meat back into the soup. Escarole and pre-cooked beans get added at the end. I have never made this soup, but I question whether the meat of the hock would be sufficiently cooked after only an hour. But an hour would be plenty to create a chicken/smoky ham flavor. My reservations about cooking a hock in the soup is the same as it is for a dish like red beans and rice. Maybe it is just me, but that can add a lot of grease to a bowl of soup or beans. So that's the main reason I make ham stock, so it is easy to skim off as much fat as desired. Actually a smoked ham shank produces a very modest amount of fat.

I too have combined ham broth with chicken broth, although mostly when I don't have enough of either for cooking beans. Keeping pints of ham broth in the freezer is a lifesaver. I use it for simmering long-cooked string beans, along with a little wine and tomato, and for finishing sauteed greens. My latest use for a pint of ham broth is for a recipe from Smitten Kitchen called Melting Potatoes. Thick slices of potato get roasted and then finished for a final 15 minutes with broth. When using ham broth I often toss in some roasted green chiles and some fresh chopped tomatoes. Yukon Golds work really well for this dish; it is now my favorite way to eat potatoes. The leftovers make a great breakfast--or a great breakfast side.

@Kim Shook says: Why do Greek restaurants always have such great bread. Even when the restaurants aren't all that great, the bread usually is! We don't go out to eat very often, and it has been years since I thought to go to a Greek restaurant. We were in Greece years ago and although we enjoyed ourselves immensely, happily eating local yogurt and fresh Greek salads at every meal, the bread was not memorable. In fact our big joke when we were wandering about a town in the afternoon and smelled that wonderful smell of baking bread, we would say, "Oh, there's tomorrow's bread!" Not meant to disparage Greek food. I could live on taramasalata and retsina and salads and olives for weeks and be thrilled.

A question for all of you ham hock users. For several years I have been using smoked ham shanks instead of hocks. They are meatier and have just as much flavor, as far as I can tell. They are a bit less fatty, maybe. I use them to make a ham stock and then strain off the fat, or at least most of it. I simmer my beans in the stock and then it's optional to add back the ham just before serving, after I've cut it off the bones and trimmed off the gristle. My husband likes to add back in the ham, but I like my beans without it, with just the flavor from being cooked in the stock. Typically shanks are sold sawed in three partial cuts, and that includes cutting through the bone. I do rinse the shanks briefly before cooking in running cold water, but I don't soak them or do a second rinse, and I find the end product broth not overly salty. Does anyone else prefer shanks over hocks?

Okay, here's my first impression. In order to squeeze the lemon you have to use side pressure which means you need the other hand to stabilize or push back on the other direction. With a wooden reamer the pressure is equalized on both hands. With many cone shaped juicers the pressure is mainly down, so the other hand need only keep the object from moving. I am a big fan of the old fashioned wooden reamer. It is simple and for me gets every drop of juice that can be squeezed out. Some people like to have a built-in strainer. Using the reamer means I just have to spoon out the seeds. Your gadget doesn't solve that problem either, even though it has a pouring spout.

To qualify as "gribenes" you would need to fry up pieces of chicken skin. If it is fatty skin it will make its own schmaltz. Onions are a tasty addition, but optional, I believe, or at least they were in my childhood. My grandmother cooked up some good ones.

Now I remember why I don't buy large winter squash. Acorn is about all I can handle. Or, on rare occasions, butternut, which I ask my husband to cut in half, although he who rarely cooks anything has more kitchen accidents than I do. He bakes fabulous bread though, which is quite safe, so that's perfect.

To my mind, yes. If no plain burger is offered on the menu and the blue cheese is part of the normal prep, the kitchen has to make an adjustment just for you; they have to think about YOU, not just your food. If they adjust down the bill that would be very generous, but if they don't then I would still leave feeling satisfied and accommodated.

@Margaret Pilgrim Blintzes and bacon? There's a combination I've never seen before. It's been ages since I made blintzes. What a concept! I like them fruity and not too sweet, just a little sweet. Yum.

That does look very nice, and I would certainly eat it happily. But pizza with mashed potatoes? No. Never.