Ratatouille

Saturday November 24

On Thanksgiving, after we had cooked all day and eaten all afternoon, everyone sat down to watch the animated film Ratatouille. We were charmed by the clever drawings and script, though while all the publicity for the movie concentrated on how the artists studied the movements and actions of real chefs, we were struck by how much they had studied the movements and actions of real rats.

The climax, of course, is the desperate moment when Remy the rat comes up with an elegant version of ratatouille to serve to the restaurant critic Anton Ego. The recipe was adapted from one by Thomas Keller, who also served as advisor to the film, and can be found on the World on a Plate blog.

We certainly didn't make such an elaborate, benriner-intensive recipe when we got home to our clean but cold house after a 350-mile drive from Illinois. Instead, we did the simplest version (no tomato-skinning, no pepper-roasting) of the peasant dish, cleaning out our vegetable bins for the various ingredients, and gradually shedding our coats in the grateful warmth of steam from the stew, while the furnace slowly brought the house's temperature up to the low 60s.

So heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a big non-reactive pot (avoid aluminum, unless you want your eggplant to resemble your rapidly decreasing gray-matter) and sauté a two large chopped onions and two minced cloves of garlic until transparent. Cube up two large eggplants (skinned, if necessary), add them to the pot with a dollop more oil, and keep cooking, adding more oil if they begin to stick or burn. When the eggplant cubes are dark and tender, throw in about a cup of chopped green pepper; we used our garden poblanos of course, but bell peppers of any color are fine. Cook a bit more, then add two cups of finely-chopped or puréed fresh tomatoes - again, these were from our garden, but good canned tomatoes are fine too. At the same time, sprinkle in about 2 Tbsps. of chopped fresh oregano, the same amount of fresh thyme leaves, and if you're not using poblanos, a dash of red pepper flakes. Let it all stew for 30 minutes more, until the flavors are melded and all the vedge is tender. Taste, and add salt as needed; if it needs a bigger shot of tomato flavor, squeeze in some tomato paste from a tube. Serve in big bowls with grated parmesan or romano cheese on top.

If you have leftovers (and we didn't), just wait - this tastes even better the second day.

Day-After-Thanksgiving-Leftovers

Friday November 23

After slaving over various hot appliances all day yesterday, nobody wanted to cook at all, especially when there were so many tasty leftovers in the house. So all of them got re-hotted, the extra turkey breast was sliced, and Martha made some more cranberry relish (throwing in a few of Helene's pecans this time).

For dessert, JoDee sent a cheesecake, and along with it we managed to polish off the last of Jacob's pumpkin pie and Joanna's birthday carrot cake. It's a good thing we went for a long walk today, or we'd all look like Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons.

A Traditional Thanksgiving Feast

Thursday November 22

It was not just Thanksgiving, but our niece Joanna's eighteenth birthday as well. So at an interval in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (at a time when Barbara could be forcibly wedged out from in front of the TV), we celebrated with a hearty sausage strata and a carrot cake (made by Becky) cleverly decorated with carrots and "18"s in a checkerboard across the traditional creamy icing.

The feast was scheduled for 2 PM, so preparations began soon after the birthday breakfast got cleared away. Everybody pitched in, and to keep their strength up, Joanna made cream cheese-stuffed mushrooms, while we provided some of Helene's salted giant pecans and Barbara's smoked bluefish pâté. The latter was made the night before we left, according to this recipe, but this time it benefited from a squeeze of lemon juice in the process.

We were to be fourteen at dinner: Becky and her husband Steve; their children Melanie, Joanna, Madeline, Jacob, and Caroline; his parents Chuck and Martha; her and Holt's father Harold; friends Kelly and Genevieve; and of course Holt and Barbara. The meal combined a multitude of family traditions in a most satisfactory way, and no vital element was missed.

The main feature, of course, was the enormous turkey. This (plus an extra turkey breast) was barded with bacon by Martha, and roasted unstuffed.

Dressing in the southwestern tradition was made of crumbled cornbread and sausage, masterminded (along with everything else) by Becky.

The requisite sweet-potato casserole was dotted with brown sugar and toasted in the oven; Melanie increased the usual topping-to-sweet-potato ratio by cleverly undermining her second portion.

Joanna accompanied that with regular mashed potatoes (thus strengthening her biceps), as a canvas on which to display Martha's giblet gravy.

Holt roasted asparagus, while juggling the rolls that were also warming in the oven to do so.

And to please every palate, there were three kinds of cranberry sauce: Martha's raw cranberry and orange relish; Barbara's cranberry chutney; that jellied stuff from the can that the children adore.

The sweet finale was a picture-perfect pair of pumpkin pies, baked by Jacob.

What an accomplished - and full - family!

Taco Pizza

Wednesday November 21

Today we drove over to Carbondale, Illinois, to spend Thanksgiving with Holt's sister Becky and her family. Our niece Melanie was coming home from college that same day, so to welcome her, Becky made her favorite, taco pizza, pretty much as she had this time last year. Not to mention Cool Ranch Doritos and salsa. So I won't mention them. Nor shall I mention praeteritio.

Instead of a green salad, Holt cooked up some extra grated carrots left over from the carrot cake (see above) with ginger and lemon juice; very tasty, and surprisingly popular even with the vegetable-reluctant among the children.

For dessert, Becky made crèmes brûlées to celebrate Holt's birthday, and we licked every little cup clean.

Holt's Birthday Dinner

Tuesday November 20

Since we were going to drive to a big family Thanksgiving in just two days, Holt decided to have a quiet birthday celebration at home this year. Not that it wasn't going to be fancy. Here is the menu:






Beef tenderloins: Holt cleverly cut two choice inch-and-a half-thick slices off the ends of the tenderloin we served to Jeff and Caroline this past summer, and froze them for just such an occasion. They were crusted with thyme and kosher salt, seared in a hot pan, flipped every two minutes, and then set in the oven until they reached 120 degrees, just barely medium rare.

Chanterelles sauce: to enrobe (good word, huh?) the meat, we got fresh chanterelle mushrooms from Madison's and made the sauce that La Côte Basque used to serve with veal medallions, saving one or two chanterelles to top each tenderloin, as directed. Holt also had a lot of fun flaming the cognac.

Turnip gratin: we've had this very recently, but loved it so much we had to have it again, only this time we used goose fat. Its spicy creaminess went very well with the strong woodsy flavors of beef and mushrooms.

With the meal, we served a nice little bottle of red…Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape 1989. We bought a case of this wine in 1991, when it was named Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year. We thought we were splashing out then, when it was $35 a bottle, but now it's up to $200-300. Aging has made it lighter but more complex, and its rating is higher now than it was in 1991; but as we've said before, it throws a sediment like a raisin pie, and has to be strained and decanted.

Every birthday demands cake; Holt's demands chocolate cake. So he decided to bake our nephew's chocolate soufflé cupcakes. They're delectably intense, and intensely delectable, so here's the recipe.

Mike Sosin's Chocolate Soufflé Cupcakes
(makes 12 cupcakes)

8 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1 stick butter, plus extra for greasing a muffin pan
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. natural process cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting
4 Tbsps. flour
pinch salt
4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt the chocolate with the butter and vanilla, either in a double boiler or the microwave. In another bowl, thoroughly mix the sugar, cocoa powder, flour, and salt.

With your mixer starting at low and gradually working its way up to high, beat an egg at a time gradually into the chocolate mixture. Blend in the dry ingredients a little at a time, so there are no lumps. Beat at high for 5 minutes, and then refrigerate for 5-10 minutes.

Abundantly butter a 12-cup muffin pan, and dust a little cocoa powder into each one. Fill each cup with the cooled batter, about 2/3 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until puffed up; serve at once.

You can serve these with a dollop of whipped cream or ice cream on top, with a fruit sauce lapping the bottom, or both. But as Mike says, they are good all alone.

Sorrel Vichyssoise

Monday November 19

Another main dish from Epicurious designed to get the last lovely taste of our garden greens.

We pulled up some of the precious few leeks that came up this year, and our still-abundant sorrel and chives. The soup was scrumptious hot as well as cold, and the potatoes gave it enough body to make it an entire meal.

Sorrel has two faces. As one of the reviewers complained, the half-pound required by this recipe cost about $20 where s/he lives. Also, the book-minded remember only the elegant dinner from Brideshead Revisited when they hear of sorrel soup. But another reviewer (like Barbara), was reminded of his Polish grandmother's recipe, and yet another pointed out that s/he was growing sorrel in a pot in a Manhattan apartment, and it grew like a weed - as indeed it is.

It's hard to grow sorrel from seed, but a healthy plant will spread to the point of being invasive, and little runners come off it in late summer and can be transplanted. The flavor is light and lemony, unless you overcook it (as my grandmother did), when it becomes sour. She thought it cleared the blood; modern health-mavens would say it contains antioxidants, or lutein, or something. Have we mentioned that we don't care? It is delicious.

Swiss Chard with Poblanos and Hominy

Sunday November 18

Swiss chard and poblano peppers were among the last survivors in our garden, so this recipe sang out to us from the pages of this December's issue of Food & Wine.

It's billed as one of "7 amazing sides" (a word we dislike), but it's hearty enough to be a vegetarian entrée, sort of a posole without pork. One hint, though: the recipe as written contains no added liquid, but it really needs some. We reserved the liquid from the can of hominy, and added it as needed after the chard stems had gone in. The result was still stewy rather than souplike, and very tasty. Not to mention the antioxidants and other healthful stuff you get from all these vegetables, which we won't, because as you may have noticed, we don't care. We eat good food because it's good.