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Sunday, November 23, 2014

How to Keep Your Cool While Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner



How to Keep Your Cool While Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner

When you’re responsible for the holiday feast, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Keep calm and baste on with recipes for turkey and all the fixings, plus a ‘Countdown to 

By Gail Monaghan in the Wall Street Journal

THE PROSPECT OF preparing Thanksgiving dinner can be enough to provoke dreams of defection to a faraway land. It seems almost punitive that the feast should fall on the fourth Thursday of November—mid-workweek, in an already-way-too-busy season. How to get through it without feeling the opposite of thankful?
First off, make use of your loved ones. I cook the turkey, gravy, stuffing and a couple of sides and encourage (or assign) guests to bring the rest: appetizers, salads, more sides, the requisite profusion of desserts.
Beyond that, it’s all about timing. Simply stick to the game plan laid out here, and you’ll produce a grand spread right on schedule, even if you have to spend Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at the office.
The menu that follows is largely traditional, with a few smart tweaks: cornbread stuffing run through with ribbons of chard, chorizo and smoked paprika; cauliflower steaks scattered with crisped capers; a cardamom-spiced sweet potato gratin that will forever banish candied yams from your table.
When it comes to the turkey, a dry brine of salt and herbs rubbed all over the bird a couple of days in advance will produce succulent, flavorful results. And basting with Madeira butter makes for perfectly crisp, golden skin.
We’ve even built in breaks for a glass of wine here, a little football watching there. Because isn’t this supposed to be a holiday for you, too?

Poster's comment:
1)  I once enjoyed a meal hosted by a Japanese gal in Oklahoma of all places. She was even using an electric wok, to boot. 
2)  Her presence and style made the whole experience rather enjoyable to me.
3)  I assumed, but don't really know for sure, that she had been taught well at home.

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