Untitled Document
Thanksgiving has really crept up on me this year.
Partly it’s because of the weather; I can’t ever remember a
year when we haven’t had a hard freeze by Halloween. Just a couple of
days ago, I opened the windows in our family room. Several times lately
I’ve even turned on the air conditioning in my car for a few minutes
to cool it down when it’s been sitting in the sun. Probably the biggest reason Thanksgiving is suddenly
looming on the horizon for me is that this year it really is early (duh!).
In fact, it’s as early as it can possibly be: Nov. 1 was a Thursday,
making Thanksgiving fall just 21 days later. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve
had to make advance plans for Thanksgiving. For most of my life,
Thanksgiving was always at my grandmother’s. It was so important to Nana to keep
the tradition of having it at her house that even when she was in her
nineties and too frail to handle the cooking, my mom (who lived next door)
did some of the preparations at her house but stuffed the turkey and
roasted it in Nana’s oven.
Even as an adult I was a only a bit player in those
productions, though I catered a Thanksgiving dinner once and taught
Thanksgiving cooking classes When my mom took over the bulk of the cooking,
I played a slightly larger role, but until then my only contributions to
the family feast were homemade rolls and cranberry sorbet. Because I made
the sorbet mixture and the roll dough the day before, Thanksgiving was a
relaxed, even lazy day for me. I could sleep late (when my kids were
little, they usually spent the night at my mom’s), then get up and
leisurely putz around. All I had to do was set the pan of rolls out to
rise, then stick them in the oven, and dump the sorbet mixture into the
ice-cream freezer and flip the switch. According to Mary Clingman, director of the
Butterball hotline (800-BUTTERBALL), the fact that the mantle of
Thankgiving preparations didn’t fall on my shoulders until I was in
my very late forties is far from unusual. The Butterball hotline has been
in existence for 27 years. (There’s also a Web site:
www.butterball.com.) Staffed by home economists, the hotline is open every
day between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, including Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and
Christmas. The Butterball experts are ready with answers to all kinds of
questions, from common queries about cooking time, temperature, and recipes
to the bizarre: “When do I need to put the turkey in so that
it’s done exactly at halftime?” One of Clingman’s most
memorable calls came from a flustered father whose wife had just given
birth. He was worried that they wouldn’t be able to use the turkey
thawing in the refrigerator back home. When Clingman asked how big it was,
the man replied, “The turkey or the baby?”
While the staffers are answering questions,
they’re also asking some. Every year they compile a statistic or two.
Sometimes the questions are related to preparation — “Do you
use a meat thermometer?” “Do you use the giblets?”
— but this year the question once again is “Who’s cooking
the turkey?”
You might think that most of the hotline calls would
come from young adults living on their own for the first time. The reality,
however, fits with my own experience. This year so far, most of the callers
(84 percent) have been in their forties or older, roasting a turkey for the
first time because Mom or Grandmother had always done it before. When I
spoke with Clingman, the hotline had been in operation for less than two
weeks, but she says statistics from the beginning of the hotline are always
consistent with those compiled over the entire run. Things haven’t
changed much over the years, either; in fact, this year’s percentage
is slightly higher for the 40-and-up category than in 1994, the last time
the question “Who’s cooking the turkey?” was asked; that
year it was 75 percent. Clingman said she’d even taken a call this
year from a 79-year-old woman who’d recently emigrated to the U.S.
from Europe; this would be not only the first turkey but also the first
Thanksgiving dinner she’d ever eaten or prepared. The split between
sexes for this most traditional American holiday has remained the same over
the years, too, with only 20 percent of the turkeys being cooked by men. Lazy Thanksgivings are a thing of the past for me
now. I don’t mind; I like the planning, cooking, and satisfaction of
pulling it all together. It helps that everyone in my family — my
mother, husband, and three children — is an excellent cook. Our
strong opinions about how things should be done occasionally clash, but
even those minor turf skirmishes are lighthearted. In fact, I enjoy the
cheerfully chaotic kitchen hustle and bustle as much or even more than the
meal itself.
Send questions and comments to Julianne Glatz at
realcuisine@insightbb.com.
CRANBERRY SORBET
My husband, Peter, brought cranberry sorbet to our
family Thanksgiving tradition. His father did virtually all the cooking in
their family; the sorbet was the only thing his mother ever made for
Thanksgiving. She passed away a year after we were married, and it was
something he wanted for Thanksgiving not only because he liked it but also
because it reminded him of her. We serve it with the main part of the meal
as a palate-cleanser, though it also makes a refreshingly light dessert.
Initially we made both jellied cranberries and the sorbet, but we’ve
quit making the jelled mold because everyone prefers the sorbet. In either
its liquid or frozen state it also makes a great aperitif when mixed with
sparkling wine.
4 cups fresh or frozen (don’t unthaw before
measuring) cranberries 1/2 cup sugar plus 2 cups sugar, divided 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice 1/3 cup orange juice Combine cranberries, 1/2 cup of the sugar and 2 cups
of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is
dissolved, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the cranberries are
completely softened and the skins have popped, seven 10 minutes. Let cool
to room temperature. In another saucepan, combine the 2 cups of sugar and
3 cups of water over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Bring to a boil and let simmer for two or three minutes. Remove from the
heat and let cool at least to room temperature. Purée the cranberry mixture through a sieve or
food mill and combine it with the sugar syrup. Discard the skins. Mix in
the lemon and orange juices. Refrigerate until completely chilled. Freeze
in an ice-cream freezer in accordance with the manufacturer’s
instructions. Alternatively, place mixture in a shallow pan (such as a
9-by-13-inch cake pan) and put the pan in the freezer. Stir every 15
minutes until frozen. Freezing in a pan will result in an icier (i.e.,
coarser) texture; however, many prefer it to the finer texture produced by
an ice-cream maker. Makes about 2 quarts
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2007.
