Sunday, November 30, 2008

30 November 2008 – Thanksgiving Sunday



It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so I will not be cooking tonight. I cooked enough on Thursday to last a while and loved every minute of it! It is a very rainy day and rumors of snow mixing in tomorrow. Jim and I are going to see two movies today: Quantum of Solace and Milk. We were too tired from the Thanksgiving Soiree to do our movie marathon on Friday. The party ended about 4:30 am, and it was a blast! You know it is a good party when you find remnants of a pink feather boa on the floor the morning after! I made this slide show to commemorate the event. Great friends, great food and great music. In lieu of grace, we sang along to Barbra Streisand's "Happy Days Are Here Again" to celebrate Obama's stunning election. I awoke at 7:45 on Thursday morning and started cooking. I did not stop until we sat down for dinner around 8:30! It was a great day in the kitchen. I ordered a kosher organic free range turkey from Aaron's Gourmet in Upstate New York. It was a very divine bird – the best yet! My dear friend Ann Willoughby could not join us this year, but she would be happy to know that the turkey was properly roasted. Last year's was very slightly undercooked but still good. All of our friend's brought dishes and wine, and the cast performed wonderfully. I am very thankful for having the most amazing partner, friends, and family. I made my mom's Southern cornbread dressing, so she was here in spirit. I am also thankful for my kitchen, especially my Viking range! It is like a dear friend to me, and I began the Thanksgiving journey with a proper cleaning. It was very therapeutic. Special thanks to Jim for cleaning the kitchen after the throwdown!

It's now time to get ready for the movie marathon, so here is the Thanksgiving menu to the best of my recollection. I apologize if I left anything out. Everyone was assigned a color family for their dish, and they delivered on hue. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving also. Happy Holidays and Sunday Suppers to one and all.

The Feast:

Bill: (Multicolored)

- Roasted Kosher Organic Free Range Turkey
- Betty's Southern Cornbread Dressing
- Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes
- Salt and Pepper Cream Biscuits
- Red Velvet Cake

Steve: (Green and White)

- Baby Lettuces with Pears, Mushrooms and Blue Cheese

Amado: (Pumpkin Dispensation)

- Savory Pumpkin Bread from Amado's Organic Pumpkins

Matt and George: (Yellow and Tan)

- Edna Lewis' Corn Souffle
- Cornbread Souffle

The Cory: (Green)

- Southern Green Beans With Bacon

Jeff Brown: (Brown)

- Jeff's Famous Pecan Pie

Sylvie: (Chocolate)

- Crab Cake Appetizers
- Assorted Chocolate Coins From Heaven

Maxey: (Orange)

- Roasted Root Vegetables

Clem: (Red)

- Cranberry and Walnut Relish

Sunday, November 23, 2008

23 November 2008






Well it is the Sunday before Thanksgiving, so I am getting psyched! I love to prepare the Thanksgiving feast. I've began to clean the Viking range. I started with the stove top yesterday and will run the self clean cycle on the ovens tonight after supper. Yesterday, we had our Historic Canton Homeowners Association Yard Sale. It was a fundraiser for our legal fund, and we did pretty well. We have some great neighbors, and it was fun to spend the day with them. We all bought stuff from each other as well, and I found some great treasures! The best thing was a series of cookbooks: The McCalls Cooking School! My friend Rajayne was so jealous that I found them first! I bought two other cookbooks, including the National Symphony Orchestra Cookbook, complete with hand written notes from the previous owner. I also found the strangest kitchen towel that has a rather masculine looking mountain girl smoking a pipe, and it has two raised puffy things for her breasts! Check out the photo. It is so odd, but I love it!

While working the sale, I had a long conversation with our friend and neighbor, Wanda Roach, about our Thanksgiving dishes. It made me very nostalgic for some classic comfort food, so I decided to prepare Julia Child's classic chicken pot pie for tonight's Sunday Supper! You really can't beat it on a cold, early winter night. Plus, I now have enough homemade chicken stock for my mother's southern cornbread dressing on Thanksgiving! I should be writing copy for a project, but making chicken in cream sauce with flaky pastry is so much more rewarding.

Wishing everyone a very happy Thanksgiving. Good luck with your bird and sides!

And as Julia would say, bon appetit!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

16 November 2008

I was in Santa Fe all weekend for the AIGA New Mexico Showdown design competition. I judged the show and gave a presentation along with my friends Gong Szeto and Terry Marks. It was an honor to share a stage with them since they are both so talented. So, I got home late tonight and was not able to cook my Sunday Supper. However, my Sunday Supper blog fan, Bernardo Margulis, posted this on my Facebook status on Saturday:

Bernardo Margulis posted a photo. 5:00pm



"Your status shows you're away. I figured that tomorrow night you'll either be too tired or won't be back on time, so I took care of Sunday Supper for you. Except I'm Jewish, so I did it Saturday Supper.

White mac and cheese with mushrooms and basil."

Thanks Bernardo! It looks and sounds delicious!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

09 November 2008 - Jeff Brown's Birthday




Wow. It has been a fun, but tiring, weekend! Last night, we went to our BFF, Jeff Brown's, birthday party. It was after 4 AM when I got home, but it was a blast! I have been dragging all day and thought about not cooking tonight. However, Jim thought it sounded good, and my friend, Bernardo Margulis, made a nice comment about my Sunday Suppers blog on my Facebook wall, so I thought I had better support my fans. Plus, I read a great recipe that I wanted to try in this month's Saveur, and it was an excellent choice. Stretch's Chicken Savoy was created by Carlo "Stretch" Verdicchio, a cook from Newark who opened the Belmont Tavern in 1967. It is an intoxicating roast chicken laced with garlic, herbs and red wine vinegar. Comfort food personified! I served it with mascarpone mashed potatoes and sauteed organic cabbage. It was the perfect meal to end an amazing week with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America! It will be grand to witness the transformational change in the years ahead. Peace out...

The Menu:

- Stretch's Chicken Savoy

- Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes

- Sauteed Organic Cabbage