vera charles

One thing I find fascinating this time of year is how many people, who apparently never cook, venture out to the stores in search of unfamiliar ingredients. I have seen so many confused people in the produce section and I usually ask if I can help them. I have had a young couple ask if I knew which kind of potatoes they should use to mash ( I prefer russets), an older man who wasn't sure if his wife wanted curly or flat-leaf parsley ( I guessed flat-leaf), and a woman holding a shallot in her hand and staring at it in confusion (she turned to me and asked, "Do you know if this is a shallot?" I told her it was, so she put it in her basket). The baking aisle is also overrun by people who don't bake any other time of year, so at least someone is putting some effort into making instead of buying. I say pi-KAHN, but my husband's family says PEE-can. His mother grew up in North Carolina and she brings me a bag of pecans from her hometown every so often. My husband doesn't like them! Oh, well, more for me. If I remember correctly, Jeffrey and Ina's older brother were roommates at Dartmouth. That is how Ina met Jeffrey when she was still in high school. She went to Syracuse for two years, but when Jeffrey graduated, she dropped out and they got married.

I can't seem to find the comment now, but it was someone else who said they were introverted. But I am also an introvert, so I understand the feeling of being able to do your own thing, while also feeling like you don't quite get what everybody else is doing. :) I went to bed last night thinking about your comments, Lura. I, too, have a sister-in-law who came into the family and decided that what we had always done didn't suit her, so she forced changes, and my mother went along with a lot of it. In our case, though, SIL decided that her family of origin should take precedence and my brother no longer needed to exchange gifts with our family. Because all of the other grandchildren are over 20 and SIL's kids are younger, we all buy for them and get nothing in return. My sister and I each have our own Christmas celebrations at our own houses and give gifts to each other's families. We also celebrate with our own in-law's, so it's not like we don't have any Christmas at all. But I miss my family getting together like when I was a kid. This is the same sister-in-law who, the first time she tasted my completely from scratch, three day project Christmas trifle, explained to me that her friend made something similar that involved frozen pound cake, instant pudding and Cool Whip. According to her, I was a fool to spend so much effort on something that could easily be tossed together from packets and no one would really care. I can laugh about it now, because she really is an idiot, but at the time, my feelings were very hurt. This really is an interesting conversation and I am glad we are all here to support each other. :)

Epiphany is the celebration of the arrival of the Three Wise Men to the manger and it's always January 6. One of my grandmothers had a Nativity scene set up and she moved the Wise Men and their camels closer to it every day, until they arrived on Epiphany. It is also the 12th day of Christmas. In spite of what the marketers would have us believe, the 12 days of Christmas start on Christmas and end on January 6.

Wow, I never heard of that sheets thing, stewedsquash! My grandmothers were both way too picky about how clean their houses were to ever let something like that happen! This year, I feel like everybody else in town got their lights up and their houses decorated on Thanksgiving weekend, because it was 70 degrees that Sunday and it's been cold ever since.

Way back in one of the early seasons, wasn't Linda shown to be concerned about Danny's gun being in the house when he was home? Now she just leaves her purse sitting on the table with a gun in it? This show just gets stupider and stupider.

Don't feel like you are the only one running late, Lura. I just got back from buying a Christmas tree! I think this year things were especially rushed because Thanksgiving was about as late as it can be, so there were fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Over the years, I have tried to just cut out the stuff that I and the rest of the family don't care about, in order to focus on the things that we do care about. My husband did the outside lights last weekend and he addressed the handful of cards we send the other night. I went shopping a few weeks ago and again one evening last week. I will have to do one last run tomorrow after work, then the gift buying is done. My son will be coming home from college on Wednesday, so I'd like to have the tree decorated by then. I will do some baking next weekend, then take some cookies to a couple of neighbors - an older couple on our street and a single man next door, none of whom have family nearby - but that is the extent of my food gifting. When watching Ina, it helps to remember that she tapes those shows way in advance, so it's hard to tell what actually goes on in the Garten house as the holidays draw near. And doesn't she go to Paris, anyway? When you think about those people who start decorating right after Halloween, remember that they are the same people who are so sick of Christmas by the time it finally gets here, they are ripping their decorations down on December 26 and moving on to the next thing on their list. Personally, I wish we could go back to the way it was when my parents were kids. They didn't put the tree up until Christmas Eve and spent the whole week between Christmas and New Year's celebrating and they didn't take the decorations down until Epiphany. I think somehow we have gotten it all backwards. The weeks leading up to Christmas should be filled with hopeful anticipation, not hysterical hyper-speed preparations and beating ourselves up because we didn't get everything done in November. At least that's how I wish it could be.

I have been looking for that Christmas Bites episode! It ran on TCC last year and somehow I missed it. I am now marking my calendar for Dec. 23. :)

She did! It was called English Feast and featured a steamed pudding made of cereal and cooked in a slow cooker. That Sandy, what a trip.

I can't believe Aunt Sandy didn't have one of these!

According to Urban Dictionary, it is a combination of shirt and tent.

Holy crap, grisgris, can you imagine Aunt Sandy and Duchess Kate hanging out together? And who knows what kind of crazy gift wrapping tablescape would be involved. And mocktails, since even Sandy would know not to offer a pregnant woman an alcoholic drink. (She does know that much, rIght?) What a missed opportunity!!!

I am on the "cook my food all the way through" bandwagon. The thought of eating a little layer of cooked salmon surrounding a chunk of raw salmon makes me gag. If I order it in a restaurant, I always ask for it well done. If they balk, I order something else. I like my eggs cooked all the way through. My son likes sunny-side-up with liquid yolks. I will fix them for him, but I won't eat them. I also like cilantro. Go figure.

Giada isn't "must watch" for me. I watch Giada when there isn't anything else on or to see a specific recipe. Sometimes, I catch the beginning or end of an episode when I am watching something else, so I make a point to find the episode to see the recipe. She can be annoying, but compared to several other FN hosts, she is relatively inoffensive. Some of the making fun of her repetitiveness, I think, comes from comparing her now to how she used to be. The original Everyday Italian show was really good. The new, improved "lifestyle" show, not so much.

I think my turkey was about 14 pounds. I put it in at 450 for about a half hour (maybe a little more), then turned the oven down to 350 and let it roast for another three hours or so. I tented with foil the first 2.5 hours, then uncovered it for the last hour. The temperature at the thigh was 185 when it came out of the oven. It rested on the counter for about an hour while we finished the side dishes and I covered it loosely with foil all of that time. When we moved it to the platter, it was still so hot I couldn't pick it up barehanded. The white meat was very juicy, not dry or overcooked at all, and the dark meat was very done. I am always wary of time-by-pound estimates, since every turkey seems to be different. A fresh turkey makes a huge difference in the cooking time. The first fresh turkey I ever roasted only took 2.5 hours for a 12 pound turkey. We could have had Thanksgiving lunch instead of dinner! This is the recipe I used: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robert-irvine/roasted-tom-turkey-recipe.html I saw Robert Irvine make it on a Thanksgiving special years ago on FN. He helped a lady cook dinner for a volunteer fire department. The turkey they used was huge, so I scaled down accordingly.

The origin of the old saying "From soup to nuts".

When I make gravy, I don't use any milk or cream. Years ago, I used to use my dad's slurry method. Then, at some point, my mom started making gravy with roux + broth + pan drippings and I started doing that. This was actually a topic of discussion at my workplace recently. One of my coworkers commented on my chicken pot pie and I told her how I made the gravy. She said she had never heard of making gravy without adding milk and she can't eat dairy products, so she hadn't made gravy in years. I think I originally found the formula I use in The Joy of Cooking. Basically, it's two tablespoons of fat and two tablespoons of flour cooked together, then two cups of broth added. I add any pan drippings to that, or use more broth if I want it thinner, or let it cook longer if I want it thicker. The two + two + two formula is also how I make white sauce to start off my macaroni and cheese. Two tablespoons of butter + two tablespoons of flour, cook a minute or two, then add two cups of milk and cook until it starts to thicken.

Aunt Sandy was riding the lead float of the parade, which also had a giant turkey and various Pilgrims on board. This is at least the third time she has been on the lead float, and she always wears a white coat.

Chessiegal, I live in the central part of Anne Arundel County and it snowed like crazy on Wednesday. My son had college classes Wednesday morning, so we picked him up and headed west just after noon. It snowed like crazy all the way to my parents' house in far-western Maryland, but the roads were not bad at all. We came home today and there is hardly any snow left in the higher elevations and none at all here. Definitely a weird early storm. Oh, I totally missed the cranberry sauce! I would be disappointed if that was missing from the Thanksgiving dinner table. I love them.

Yes, I saw her, too. She was near the front of the parade, wearing a white coat with all white accessories, waving to the crowd.

Lura, I am between Baltimore and Washington. I think chessiegal is my neighbor. :) Our farmer's market starts in late May or early June and goes until the day before Thanksgiving, so Wednesday was the last time for this year. We had a freak snow storm but they had it anyway, so I was out in the snow buying Brussels sprouts , broccoli, and winesap apples. I'm sad that my market is closed for this year! I can't figure out what was missing from that Thanksgiving menu, so someone will have to tell me. And on my own menu, I forgot that my mom made pumpkin pie and my sister made an applesauce cake. Truly a team effort.

My mom, my sister and I all cooked at my mom's house. I did the turkey using a Robert Irvine recipe that had onion, carrot, celery, an orange and an apple inside the turkey, plus a stick of butter and chopped fresh herbs under the skin and all over the outside. Delicious! I made the gravy and fresh Brussels sprouts - I got them at the farmer's market Wednesday and they had just been picked that day. My sister made the stuffing and the sweet potatoes. My mom made the mashed potatoes and cole slaw. We had ten people, all over age 20, and now we have a ton of leftovers. My husband's favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the cold turkey sandwiches the day after, so today is his day!

Looking at Ina's pie crust recipe, I think it uses more flour and less fat than my recipe. I don't know if the sugar would have any effect, but I use a teaspoon and Ina uses a tablespoon, so maybe that makes a difference? I usually use the pie crust recipe from The Joy Of Cooking and it hasn't failed me yet.

If you google "Barefoot Contessa Make Ahead Gravy" the first two results are on foodnetwork.com. The first recipe specifies "defatted turkey drippings plus chicken stock to make 2 cups". The second just says to use two cups of chicken stock. In general, when I make roast chicken and want gravy to go with it, I make the gravy from stock, then add the browned drippings from the bottom of the roasting pan to improve the color and flavor. When I make a turkey for Thanksgiving, I buy a couple of turkey wings and roast them a few days ahead, then make stock from them and use it to make gravy.

There is a lot of waste in the production of any cooking show, so I always hope the crew or somebody got to eat the prepared food, take the flowers home, or whatever. I can see making a huge centerpiece like that for a wedding or banquet, and maybe the fact that it's made in sections would mean that multiple people could take parts of it home.

I don't think the centerpiece was for anything in particular. The episode started off with Ina talking about the centerpiece that Michael had made for a wedding and showing off pictures of it. She said he was going to show her how it was made, then he showed up with the flowers and did just that. At the time, I thought it would have made more sense if maybe he just did one section, then explained how it all fit together. It seemed like a terrible waste of flowers.