numinous sproots

little Dakity brings her 3 year old Irish Jack Russell intensity to the sere woods of this autumn

This sere stick season leads up to my favorite holiday, at least in part because Thanksgiving has been the only one devoid of the threat of gifting, that horrendous word for shopping until dropping. But more than that it is the gathering aspect of it, of family and friends, in the kitchens and around the tables, and I won’t mention the television and game aspect, although that’s part of it too, or it was. People still do gather, right? And cook? And feast?

Well that’s the thing – gardening is about done so it’s time to think of feasting, at least until the light starts coming back again. For now, I’m still picking sorrel and mint and swiss chard and kale, and the occasional dig yields crisp Jerusalem artichokes. But the onerous fall chores are pretty much done. The leaves are ground up and in the compost along with Ruth Ann’s and Rob’s sheep poop and the occasional rodent that has given new meaning to Dakity’s days. Exhilarated, she backs out of her hole at my call, ears alert, paws muddy. Marc has made trellises for me that will give new life to the Nimtz roses when the ground warms up next June. Fingers crossed. The garlic is planted and maybe I even have time to get some spring bulbs in before the ground freezes.

But all is not well in the world. Zoe sat right here the other day and asked me if I didn’t sense a certain element of doomsday in the air. And of course there is, what with Paris hysteria, the ignoring of other even more severe tragedies, the Big Lies certain politicians propagate to a massively gullible populace, and its mood of selfishness and NIMBYism. Isis. Trump. Ben Carson. Syria. Refugees. The world is insane. But it always has been and we always, with some halts, keep on going.

I responded that I was glad she was above DC, which is kind of like I’m glad she is above the Mason-Dixon line, or maybe the target area. Somehow it seems like going north would be safer than going south when it becomes necessary to get up from the supper table and move on up or down the highway. Because, I mean, fewer of us would head toward even more cold.

Or maybe what I really mean is that things get simpler the colder it gets. Heat brings all kinds of complications. I mean, self-rising flour? Something slightly indecent sounding about that, isn’t there? Self-rising, indeed! Too lazy to put some baking powder or soda into the bowl with the flour, are you? Then get on down south, Dear. Make some of those biscuits out of that lily-white, silken-soft, self-rising flour. Be sure to put on your frilly apron while you’re at it.

Funny, isn’t it, how when faced with doomsday the mind can just so easily swing back to food. ‘What are we going to find to eat,’ is the sentiment, because one does need to eat, doesn’t one. And someone needs to be figuring that out, the other way is hunger, pure, unsolicited starvation. How do you think we’ve survived all these years if not because someone took it upon themselves to think about feeding everybody. Pilar comes to mind, in the cave, in the mountains of ... Spain, wasn’t it? We cook on a heated rock or stone if need be. Because isn’t it much pleasanter to cook a meal than build a bomb; to sustain by life rather than by death?

In light of troubles in the world, and especially at this time of year you wonder about your own gluttony – the extravagance of being able to think about what specialities you are going to contribute to the Thanksgiving table, whether Jasmine will really find the good kind of oysters (I have been shocked at the sudden awfulness of those I used to buy in little pull-top cans at grocery store fish departments), if Nathan will get the consistency of the dressing right – when there are so many people in the world who are hungry, who die of hunger, or who are addicted to fast food, or who have no kitchen. No bowl. No chance.

Nevertheless, we go on, we incorporate changes, we help where we can. It is not the first year I haven’t done Thanksgiving in my kitchen, no, not at all, but it is the first time my daughter and her partner, Jesse, are doing it for the family, in their own house! Jesse’s baking a ham, a Wallingford Locker one, of course, and he’s preparing squash and mashed potatoes.  Zoe will make her traditional scalloped oysters (these are ordered from Green Mountain Fresh, which guarantees they will be the good ones). Me, I’m bringing the Italian Green Tomato Mincemeat Tart with crème fraiche, a lovely Brussels sprouts casserole, and... whatever else seems to need to be done. Zoe will make another pie, maybe apple, and maybe P2 will bring the requisite green bean casserole. It will be delicious. There will be mountainous leftovers. We will eat for a week.

The idea for those Brussels Sprouts in béchamel came from a recipe Ruth Reichl tweeted recently. It was a cauliflower casserole that I adapted to Brussels sprouts because that’s what I had. Next day Carol Tashie posted a similar recipe on her Radical Roots Facebook Page. Of course I used Radical Roots Brussels Sprouts. The ham trimmings came from a Plew Farm smoked jowl that I keep in the freezer and shave off what I need. It was sweet creamy Larson’s unpasturized milk that I used, and though Ruth called for a different kind of cheese, the raclette I’d gotten at Ooh La La bakery was perfect. The hard cheese was a Champlain Valley Tomme from Bridport Creamery. Everything available at the Rutland Winter Farmers’ Market.  Last minute shoppers note that there’ll be one more market before Thanksgiving on Wednesday from 3 to 6 at the Vermont Farmers’ Food Center. Remember that who controls the food supply controls the people. Buy local!

Ruth called her recipe Cauliflower a la Joe Beef. I think hers is the slightly easier one and why mess with perfection.  Nevertheless I’m calling mine,

Radical Brussels Sproots

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

To make the sauce, combine 1 1/2 cups of milk with a bay leaf, a chopped clove of garlic, 1/4 cup ham or prosciutto trimmings and bring to a simmer. Turn off the heat and let cool for 10 minutes.
Make a béchamel by melting 3 tablespoons of butter and whisking in 3 tablespoons of flour and cooking, whisking, for a minute or so. Slowly add the milk mixture, whisking constantly. Continue until it’s thick, then stir in a quarter cup of grated raclette and a quarter cup of grated hard cheese. Add salt and pepper and keep warm.

Salt a large pot of water, bring it to a boil and toss in a pound or so of trimmed Brussels Sprouts. Cook for 3 minutes. Drain.

Toss the sprouts with the cheese sauce, pour it into a casserole dish and scatter a mixture of grated cheese and bread crumbs over the top. Bake for about 20 minutes until bubbling and golden.

I have to say every beautiful step of making and eating this dish is totally satisfying. Leo and I had it for supper last week. With just a tiny green salad and homemade bread. Absolutely numinous.  

Numinous is a puzzling word, having nothing to do with numbers but denoting, for some reason, the spiritual. It comes from the Latin word  nūmen, which means ‘nod’, in a divine way I guess, and it might be what you feel when you are surrounded by trees and the mysteries of wildlife and the workings of your own legs as you climb a path through them. I think that’s what keeps you going in stressful and tragic times. We continue to use our bodies, to bring new souls into the world, and to eat. It’s what we do. Have a wonderful and numinous Thanksgiving!

snimtz@gmail.com

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cooking sublime thanks

We went to friends' house for Thanksgiving, so Leo made his fat noodles and I made a pumpkin pie, the Italian Green Tomato Mincemeat Tart, creme fraiche, roasted vegetables, kale chips and... something else, I think.

Leo's noodles went together without a hitch. Here he is cutting



and hanging them



So far, so good.

But my crusts were a different story. Remember how I told you not to worry if you had to put them together like a jigsaw puzzle? Well, both of mine were jigsaw puzzles...
Here's the bottom crust of the IGTMT...



That's not too bad, right? After all, I told you it might be a jigsaw puzzle. Here's the top...



It looks messier, but it wasn't. Here is the way it came out of the oven. I think it looks like a Jackson Pollack, very rustic, very modern... There's something truthful about it, as though the baker had grown beyond worrying about it.



And, in spite of it all, it was really quite delicious. I think.

The real surprise is the regular crust for the pumpkin pie.



It would not. hold. together. I had to patch it and form it just like the cookie crust dough of the IGTMT. Which is NOT all right. You ruin the flakiness when you press it. But no matter, it, too, was good. I used Edna Lewis's recipe for pumpkin pie, using a heritage long pumpkin for the... well, you know, pumpkin. It has some bourbon in it, I believe, and I used... surprise... surprise...bourbon. And it calls for evaporated milk, which is a common ingredient of southern, turn of the century, early 20th century, recipes. But since I didn't have any, after a day's worth of interrupted thought about it, I used coconut milk. It was dense, but I think it always is, and very sweet! But then so was the IGTMT. Must be my tastebuds. This is how they looked when done. I decorated each with a single red oak leaf.



I love Thanksgiving, our wonderful secular holiday in stick season. I love the muted colors of the sticks and the old leaves, the mauves and grays multiplied now. I love the murmuring voices of Thanksgivings past. Happy Thanksgiving season, everyone.

no bore localvore

When it comes right down to it Thanksgiving is as much about memories as it is about food. That’s why it’s no child’s favorite holiday – they’re in the process of making memories, not looking back wistfully upon them. Making memories can be fun, too, in the actual event, but anticipation? That has to be learned!

Standing on tiptoes, peering through the window above the sink in my grandmother’s kitchen, watching the big Buick full of Flint relatives pull up the drive – that was Thanksgiving to me. Grandma turns from the window and, drying her hands on her apron, trots across the linoleum floor to welcome aunts and uncles as they stream through the kitchen door, stomp snow off their boots, hold out covered baskets, platters, and bowls, offer chill cheeks for kisses.

Thanksgiving was standing at Grandpa’s elbow as he carved the turkey, offered choice slivers from the flat of the knife, paused it while I tore at crisp skin. Grandma shared the gizzard and liver with me, pre-dinner, at the kitchen counter.

Thanksgiving still is the mincemeat pies she fashioned of venison neck from the family’s latest hunting season and apples from her tree, and flavored them with pinches of the cinnamon and nutmeg she hoarded in her small spice cabinet. The pumpkin pie was made of her own pumpkins, the cherry from cherries “stolen from the birds” in her orchard. When asked for their choice of mincemeat, pumpkin, or cherry pie, all the menfolk in that house said, “Yes, please.”

Talk about Localvore – we grew up that way long before the word was coined, though there were notable exceptions, and ‘bought’ ingredients collected through the year, hoarded, mostly in the little cupboard behind the kitchen door that I would raid as often as I dared – raisins, Campfire marshmallows that came perfectly formed in little white paper boxes with two layers of them, boxes of bouillon cubes I would nibble on while reading my latest book, getting my daily MSG quota. No matter how sneaky I was, Grandma would often hear those low doors open and would appear, snatch up the yardstick that stood on top of them, and flail it at my fleeing legs.

One of the notable exceptions to home-grown food was the White Salad – a special treat, it was composed of cans of white cherries and pineapple chunks, marshmallows, almonds, and a curious dressing that I have never seen elsewhere: The juice of one lemon is combined with a little thick cream and the beaten yolks of 4 eggs and cooked very slowly until thickened; cooled, then folded into the scant pint of whipped cream. We loved its elegance, as we thought, then, and it was good. My mother developed the tradition of Broken Glass Cake – probably a recipe from a woman’s magazine, it was composed of squares of different colored jello held together with whipped cream and crisp, sweetened graham cracker crumbs. That became a favorite, too.

Those early Thanksgivings were, in a very real sense, localvore, but out of necessity rather than intellectual or economic decision. And that’s where our wild hunger for exotic foods such as pineapple and marshmallow originated – because they WERE exotic to us. Modern. Just Like Downtown! But the turkey and stuffing and mincemeat pie were also cause for excitement, for they were reserved only for the holidays.

As we get older, and have cooked so many Thanksgiving dinners that we can’t count them, that desire for something different has developed full-blown, so that many of us scour magazines, google wildly away, and search the supermarket shelves for different ways of preparing different foods. Preparing Thanksgiving dinners is tremendously time consuming – we want to come out on the other side with something to show for those hours.

...no brainer: a localvore thanksgiving...

So when Carol Tashie came up to me at the Winter Farmers’ Market and, with that inimitable flashing smile, asked me to sign up for the Sustainable Rutland Thanksgiving Localvore Challenge, I said, “...Sure! Piece of cake! It’s what we always do!”

I hadn’t made plans yet – all the old people, who had began to pull into MY Vermont driveway years after those youthful ones I’ve told you about, are gone; but not the memories, including ones of that year when a whole circle of friends whose extended families were arriving for Thanksgiving decided to do it together. We took over the Back Home Café – the original one – and made it a community day. That was special. But then most Thanksgivings were – and are – communal, there’s always room for one, or six, more. Those first Vermont Thanksgivings were full of children – our children. But nowadays my daughter calls from North Carolina for cooking advice, and my son is often with his girlfriend’s family. Still, these are days when we have friends to be thankful with and for, either at our house or theirs. And, fingers crossed, maybe their grandchildren will be at the table, forming memories galore.

...wait, now what is this localvore challenge?...

By definition, it would appear that the locavore, localvore (Vermont’s down-to-earth twist on the word) way of buying and preparing food that is grown or raised, or even prepared, within a hundred miles of one’s kitchen and dining room, would prove an insular way of eating, one without the awareness and practice of using certain worldly ingredients and techniques. But, not so!

The term ‘a terroir’, in widespread use just now, is certainly insular in that it refers to food that is more than just grown or raised on a certain soil, but prepared, too, by people who have lived on that soil for generations, and have learned the best way – or their favorite way – of growing and preparing, say, a little lamb grown in the hinterlands of Benson, that munches on the microflora of one pasture, with that pasture’s particular microclimate of rainfall, elevation, exposure to sun or shade, and that is bathed by a particular little creek that winds through them bringing micronutrients from upstream. That lamb, or it’s milk or it’s cheese, will be prepared in a kitchen in which certain bacteria and yeasts have developed over years, and served with the herbs, vegetables and fruits grown right beside it. And if this land was farmed by people who learned their techniques from parents and grandparents, or an insular village of people, often over centuries, a micro-cuisine might have grown up from it. Amazing meals can grow out of that insularity, and they are hard to duplicate by new owners and new farmers without the availability of advice from people who have lived on that land, for their time and mindset are diluted by google, the telephone, cooking shows, and cookbooks written by people with no sense of that place.

So, while terroir can denote a cuisine in itself, localvore cooking can borrow to the cook’s heart’s content from techniques, if not ingredients, of other cuisines.

Therefore, if you have taken up Sustainable Rutland’s Thanksgiving Localvore Challenge, or are tempted to do so, don’t despair that your Thanksgiving dinner MUST be boring and ordinary, for localvores have many alternatives to adapt their home-grown foods into special treats you wouldn’t make every day.
And it’s not totally exclusive to local foods – the Challenge allows 3 non-local foods, as well as the Marco Polo exceptions of salt, pepper, and spices.

...and now to dinner...

I have, as always, ordered a locally grown turkey. It can grace whichever table we sit down to on November 27. I always use Baba-a-Louis bread for the stuffing, and local onions and celery, as well as sausage, all of which are available at the Winter Farmers’ Market, or the Co-op, which are the pre-eminent markets for finding local foods.

This last Saturday I made a bit of an inventory of suitable ingredients there, and found absolutely no lack of potential excitement and good taste. Of course there are potatoes and turnips galore. And since I seldom make mashed potatoes during the year, the prospect IS exciting to me. I like to cook potatoes with turnips in a 3 to 1 ratio, and then mash them together with lots of butter and some buttermilk. I could use the rest of the buttermilk for a delicious and idiosyncratic buttermilk pie. There’s a tremendous variety of root vegetables, of course, and a nicely seasoned casserole of roasted root vegetables is nothing to sneeze at.


Kilpatrick Farm has big purple heads of radicchio, which could be cut in half and seared in butter, and served with a sprinkling of pan-roasted pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and blue cheese, and dressed with a balsamic and port reduction – a deconstruction of a dish I had at a Portsmouth restaurant last spring. Perhaps that could take the place of the White Salad on my table. I wonder how a waldorf salad, made of local apples, would taste with the White Salad’s creamy dressing?

Nancy, at Tweed Valley Farm, has little, immaculately-dressed quails that could be incorporated here somewhere, as well as oyster and shiitake mushrooms that could be used in the stuffing or as a separate dish, perhaps creamed, or in a risotto.

Tweed Valley also has little jars of quail eggs hard-boiled, painstakingly peeled, and pickled in beet juice, which turns them red, of course. Quail eggs have a sumptuous richness, which contrasts nicely with the sweet/tart pickling solution, and My, don’t they look festive! You know Nancy – she’s the cowgirl from whose homemade peanut brittle you must avert your eyes each Saturday. She’s taking orders for gift boxes of it now!

The Co-op carries butter from Vermont Butter and Cheese, Vermont-grown cranberries and dried cranberries, and Jasper Hill Blue Cheese, as well as a locally aged balsamic vinegar. Too, they have Heleba sweet potatoes. No marshmallows (where do they come from, anyway; shapeless, and in bags; and what are they made of) on the sweet potatoes, but I’d rather have a bit of maple syrup cooked into them anyway. Sunchokes, or Jerusalem artichokes, are in stock at both places.

I guess we’ll have to do without scalloped oysters, unless I can get my ocean-side sister to bring them. Or they could be a wild-card.

...thanksgiving through the ages...

After centuries, as it seemed to me, of growing up and getting to and then beyond the age of five, Thanksgiving became me driving into the yard, diving through that kitchen door – first from college, then from whatever desultory far-flung place I was living at the time. Later, still, all that extended family drove a thousand miles and into my Vermont driveway, Grandma still carrying the mincemeat pies, and the suet pudding if it was Christmas. By then I’d learned to roast a turkey, to assemble Grandma’s stuffing, and could even make the White Salad.

I’ll never forget the feeling of inevitability, of sadness, when Grandma suggested it was time I learn to make the mincemeat pie and suet pudding for myself. It was unthinkable! “No, I can’t,” I said. I was intimidated by the mysterious chemistry of the dishes themselves but also by the hateful knowledge that she wouldn’t always be here to make them. These were special – nearly arcane – dishes. No one made them but Grandma. “You’re gonna have to do it sometime, Kid,” Grandma said with sad surety, and I had to admit that she was right. I’ve been making them since 1987, when she segued out of this world and into the next on Halloween a few weeks before her 88th birthday.

It turns out that they are the simplest – if time-consuming – things in the world to make. But they take arcane ingredients, and arcane tastes. Here are a couple of simpler ones – albeit ones that you might not think of making – with all ingredients produced locally.

Buttermilk Pie

Pastry:

• 1 ½ cups (6 ounces) unbleached flour
• 1 scant teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup (4 ounces) butter (or lard and butter)
• 3 tablespoons (+/-) cold water

Cut the shortening into the flour/salt mixture, stir the water in until the dough starts to come together into a ball, scrape onto a well-floured surface, knead lightly into a patty, roll out and fit into a nine-inch pie plate. Fold the overhanging edges under and crimp. Set aside in a cool place while you make the filling.

Filling:

• ½ cup butter

• 1 1/3 cups sugar (now there’s a wildcard, come to think of it!)
• 3 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 ½ cups buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Cream butter and sugar together until light. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in the flour, buttermilk, lemon juice, nutmeg, salt and vanilla. Pour into the pie shell and sprinkle with more nutmeg.
Place in the oven and turn heat down to 325 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until golden brown, and when gently shaken proves not to be jiggly.
Serve warm.

The following is by the wise and practical Dan Barber, executive chef and co-owner of Blue Hill in New York City.

Sunchoke Gratin *

• 1 ½ lb sunchokes, washed and peeled
• ¼ cup chopped dates (definitely worth a wildcard!)
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• Generous grind of black pepper
• ¼ tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp butter
• 1 clove garlic

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Using a Japanese Mandolin or the slicer attachment of a food processor, slice the sunchokes into 1/8” rounds.
3. Toss the sunchokes in a large bowl with the dates, cream, milk, thyme, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
4. Gently smash the garlic clove and rub the inside of a shallow, 1½ qt casserole dish to season with the garlic. With your fingers, rub the casserole dish with the butter.
5. Add the sunchoke mix to the casserole dish; press down on the sunchoke slices and, if desired, shingle the top layer of slices. Pour any remaining cream mixture from the bowl over the sunchokes.
6. Cover with foil, place on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 25 minutes.
7. Remove foil, increase the heat to 425 F, and cook for another 15 minutes, until the sunchokes are tender and the top of the gratin is golden brown.


If you haven’t signed up for the Thanksgiving Localvore Challenge you can do so by stopping by their booth at the Winter Farmers’ Market on Saturday, or email them at info@sustainablerutland.org

I have a lot to be thankful for this year! The entire world has a lot to be thankful for this year! Let’s make some joyful and sustaining memories!

*since my column appeared several people have asked me what a sunchoke is. It is a tubor that looks like a misshapen potato, that grows underground under those tall tiny plants that look like sunflowers except that the flower is only about 3 or 4 inches in diameter. It is also called Jerusalem Artichoke. They are available at most farmers' markets and co-ops. Though they are starchy like a potato, they are sweeter, and slightly softer, I think. I have them growing wild in my yard.

Stuffed with Tradition

Mrs. Bomblatt’s Way

Mrs. Bomblatt woke calmly to the scent of sage and with no undue expectations nor worries. The big turkey, she began to remember, with her eyes not yet open, was crammed into the cooler on the porch, the big wooden bowl was full of bread cubes that had been tossed with the rendered suet, and onions that had been melted in the suet for a long, long time, as well as torn fresh sage and the Thanksgiving seasoning. How many years had she been using that same little yellow box of seasoning? A quart of oysters sat in the fridge awaiting her decision: She did not want to use saltines – which were mainly awfully unhealthy though tasty white stuff – to scallop them, though that was traditional, and she had not bought saltines for the occasion, was rethinking the technique.

The turkey broth from the neck and giblets rested in the pan on the porch counter. Mrs. Bomblatt hoped that it had gotten cold last night, but then she had grown up with chancy food temperatures and never gotten sick from them nor, to her knowledge, had anyone else. Just another way to make us fear our food, she thought with finicky irritation.

Mrs. Bomblatt rose from bed and paused at the window. The mountains were rusted brillo pads, the sky seventy-nine shades of gray that contained every other shade in the palette watered down to almost nothing. It looked to be your average gloriously restrained Thanksgiving day.

Arriving in the kitchen Mrs. Bomblatt was met by more shades. “I don’t know when you think you’re going to get that bird in the oven, Kid,” admonished her grandmother, “lying slugabed so late!” Her mother tossed her head and languidly sipped coffee. Father dipped the newspaper and winked at her over its top, and Grandpa held a bloody axe in his gnarled hand while a headless turkey scrambled under the table. Her aunt hovered near the refrigerator door just itching to start the oysters. Mrs. Bomblatt smiled to herself and began to grind the coffee beans. It never failed, they all came back on Thanksgiving day as on no other.

Mrs. Bomblatt turned from the shades and toward the telephone. She would call her daughter, she decided, to see how the instructions she had given her the day before had worked out. But with her hand on the receiver she checked herself, the recollection of the two hour time difference and Lizzy’s sleeping habits rising through the Thanksgiving haze in her head. She withdrew her hand. She would wait an hour or two, and in the meantime figure out what to do with those oysters. Stew would not do, nor raw, since there were no half shells. Something puddeny, slightly bready, something like scalloped but without those awful white crackers.

Her mind wandered to Lizzy, making Thanksgiving dinner in her own kitchen out there in that god-forsaken place.

***

“Mum, I know I’ve made stuffing with you every Thanksgiving since I was born,” she’d called to say yesterday, “but I can’t remember the fine points.”

“You know you’ve got to find some suet,” Mrs. Bomblatt had said sharply, fearing her daughter’s Thanksgiving hopes would come to naught without it. It was Wednesday afternoon and Lizzie did not yet know what ingredients she needed? How mobbed the grocery stores would be? Mrs. Bomblatt calmed herself. She began to give the needed instructions. Lizzie could deal with the mobs herself.

“You’ll need suet,” she said, “about a pound of it – that’s beef fat, of course, and most grocery stores have it. And a loaf or two of a good substantial white bread – think something as close to Baba-a-Louis as possible. And,” she put down her own loaf of Baba-a-Louis and rummaged through the spice cabinet, “some... Bells Seasoning. And fresh sage. And two or three large onions. Are you writing this down?”

“Got it, Mum.”

“All right. And if there’s something else you want in the dressing, like chestnuts, or sausage, or ... oysters, get them, too.

“Now, as soon as you get home take the bread and spread it out so it will dry a bit. Then take the giblets – don’t use the liver, just stew that in butter and eat it for lunch – and the neck, and any other trimmings of the turkey, put them into a saucepan and add about 6 cups of water. Bring that to a boil and then turn to a low simmer, add some salt and vinegar, maybe a teaspoon of each – vinegar and salt help pull the flavor from the bones into the water – cover, but tip the cover so steam can escape. Okay?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, now you make the stuffing. Chop up the suet into a large flat-bottomed skillet over low heat and let it render the fat out. You’ll end up with little crispy things after an hour or two. Scoop them out and throw them away, as they aren’t very tasty. Try them, though, sprinkled with salt, just to prove me wrong.

“Slice 2 large onions thin and add to the melted suet and, over low heat, let them just melt, stirring occasionally and turning them over and about. They will become golden but don’t let them get dark. This will take about an hour. Let the onions cool a bit in the beef fat.

“In the meantime, tear the bread into half-inch sized chunks into a big bowl. Balance your weight on your two feet, pull in your stomach muscles and breathe deeply while doing this. You will have less stress on your back, and become less tired and irritable.”

Her yogic advice met with silence at the other end, Mrs. Bomblatt plowed on. “Strew the bread cubes with a handful of torn sage leaves and a tablespoon or so of Bells Seasoning. The kitchen will begin to fill with the scent of Thanksgiving, and thus the spirit, too. Toss this mixture with your hands several times while you’re rendering the suet and melting the onions. That will help them dry out a little bit more.

“When the suet has cooled enough not to fry the bread on contact, pour it and the onions over the bread cubes and toss until each cube is coated with fat and has onions to snuggle up against, which will scent the bread. You see, Lizzy, the waxiness of the suet on the bread prevents it from becoming soggy with the turkey juices and permeates it with flavor.

“Cover the bowl with dish towels and leave overnight. Cover the giblet broth and put it in the fridge or out on your porch, if you’ve got one. Do you have a porch in that godforsaken place you live in?” Mrs. Bomblatt asked her daughter delicately.

“Sure do!”

“By then, you’ve made your pies?”

“Yes, Mama Dear.”

“All right, then, go to bed. Sleep well.”

“Nighty night, Mum.”

***

The telephone rang. “Mum! The house smells heavenly, just like Thanksgiving!” said her daughter delightedly. “I almost imagine you’re here!”

Mrs. Bomblatt, thinking of her own shades, looked out the window onto the far-away brillo-pad peak and smiled undecidedly.

“But now what?” asked her daughter, “something about eggs...?”

Shaking herself back to the present, Mrs. Bomblatt set about the next operation. “When you’re ready to stuff the bird, pour several whisked eggs over the bread – maybe three to a loaf of bread – and more fresh sage, and toss that all up. Then you check it for taste and texture. It might need more sage, or salt, or even another egg. When it’s just right, add whatever is extra for this year – are you adding extras this year, Dear?”

“Nope. I want it just simple, like Grandma and Great Grandma did it, and you do it! I just need that taste,” she continued wistfully, “something to remind me that the Thanksgiving we’re having in this crummy kitchen stems from something tried and true. And delicious.” She turned brisk, “Now Mum! What about the gravy?”

“Dear, the main thing to remember is you’re going to want lots of gravy. So, when the turkey’s out of the oven, and you’ve wrestled him onto a big platter – you DO have a big platter, don’t you, Lizzy? – well, you can use a cookie sheet or... whatever! Cover him with tinfoil! Then put the roasting pan over a burner or two, and turn the heat to low, and scrape up the bits and pieces off the bottom. Put about a cup of flour into a jar with a lid and add some water and put the lid on the jar and shake it up until it’s smooth. Skim the giblets and neck and stuff out of the broth. Toss the neck, but chop up the giblets very finely and put them back into the broth.”

“Mum! Joe HATES giblets in gravy.”

“That’s why you chop them up so very finely, Lizzy. But, do as you like. Back to business!

“If you think there’s too much fat in the pan, pour some off. But there probably isn’t too much fat in the pan with turkeys bred as leanly as they are nowadays.” Mrs. Bomblatt’s tone was ever so slightly disapproving.

“Then pour in half of the flour slurry and stir until it thickens and browns a little bit. If it’s too dry add some of the broth. Keep adding the broth a ladle at a time, and if it gets too thin add some more of the flour slurry, until you’ve used all the broth and it’s the right thickness, then add some salt until it tastes right, and some pepper. Then cover it and keep it very hot. Be sure to simmer it long enough to cook the raw flour taste out. It’ll thicken, but you can always add a little water to thin it.”

“Oooo, Mum, I can’t wait! This is going to be a great Thanksgiving!”

Mrs. Bomblatt smiled through her damned tears.

But Lizzy spoke again. “You didn’t forget oysters, did you? Have you scalloped the oysters yet?”

“They’re sitting right there in the fridge,” said Mrs. Bomblatt, “But I don’t want to scallop them with those awful crackers. I’m trying to think of something different.”

“But it’s tradition,” Lizzy wailed. “Great Aunt and then Aunt and then I made them. You’ve got to keep up your end of it, Mum – just because I’m not there...!”

Mrs. Bomblatt sighed and reached for a pencil, thinking that tradition could be carried a bit far. “Let me just jot down the recipe then, Dear.”

***

Mrs. Bomblatt was stuffing the bird when Mr. Bomblatt walked into the kitchen. “Anything I can do to help,” he announced confidently, knowing there would be nothing required of him. But he was to be disappointed, as “Yes, as a matter of fact,” said Mrs. Bomblatt, bent directly over the gaping crotch of the turkey, “If you wouldn’t mind, you could try to find a store that’s open and see if they have saltines.”

There was a flurry of movement in the corner of the kitchen, but when Mr. Bomblatt tore his dejected eyes from his wife, there was nothing more than shadows to be seen, but shadows from which emanated a distinct aura of intense satisfaction.

this twice bitten column was published in the Rutland (vt) Herald November 20, 2007