Fun fact: I have only made one Thanksgiving turkey in my life and it wasn’t even on Thanksgiving Day (my mom owns that duty). It was one random afternoon in the middle of July, when I was in the recipe testing phase of my book. (Deadlines are deadlines!) If you’re wondering why you should trust a relative novice with one… Read more »
Back in the spring, I met with a local fence builder. Masks on, six feet apart, we walked the perimeter of the backyard and discussed what sections needed replacing and how to guard against the deer who regularly leap over five-foot-high walls if there is even a single hosta to be eaten on the other side. When we got to… Read more »
I can’t remember the last time I actively decided to make an apple pie. Nine times out of ten, I back into it, after noticing that a bunch of apples are going bad and I need to salvage them before they accelerate the rotting of everything else in the fruit bowl. That happened most recently this past weekend — I… Read more »
So after a lot of back and forth, an official family zoom call, and a consultation with our Thanksgiving secretary, we have a plan. There will be no sit-down feast this year, but the 13 of us will still all be cooking for each other in our separate homes. Everyone is assigned a dish or two or three and is… Read more »
Good morning! I just listened to Samin & Hrishikesh’s Thanksgiving podcast on my walk to get coffee, and realized that I’m officially excited about the holiday — the cooking part at least. With one kid returning from college in the Midwest, the actual sit-down feast is not going to happen — at least not how we are used to seeing… Read more »
This Thanksgiving, after the turkey goes in the oven and before the potatoes get mashed, I’m going to interview my parents. I’ve been promising myself I’d do this ever since my friend Ingrid told me about Story Corps, the app that helps you record meaningful conversations (with anyone — parents, grandparents, friends, kids, anyone) then archives those conversations in the… Read more »
Last fall, my friend Kate and I were driving north on the Saw Mill Parkway in New York when she started talking about the meals she makes for her 9-year-old son. “He’s vegetarian-ish,” she said, “but not vegetarian, so I make him really basic things.” Like what? I asked. “Oh, like lentils in bone broth, cheddar-corn pancakes with buttermilk and… Read more »
. Every year around this time, Andy will turn to me and say something like “I think it’s time to shake things up a little at Thanksgiving.” Mmmm hmmm, I’ll respond, and if I wore glasses, I’d raise my eyeballs over the frames for a sec before turning back to doing what I was doing, which is, most likely reviewing… Read more »
. In my tenure as a food writer, I’ve discovered that there are two kinds of cooks in this world: Those who love to do their own grocery shopping, and those who would rather confront a demogorgon monster in the slimy snake-infested Upside Down (‘sup Stranger Things fans) than spend their precious free time chatting with butchers and squeezing melons. Never is… Read more »
. Good morning everybody! We are up early in the DALS house today — doing some pie-baking, turkey-seasoning, and last-minute farm-shopping before heading out to my sister’s house in Long Island to spend a few days with the family. As I’ve mentioned many millions of times, Thanksgiving is my Super Bowl. There’s no holiday I love more for its sheer bounteous… Read more »
In honor of the Food Writer’s Super Bowl being only three days away, I wanted to weigh in with a few nuggets of advice on how to make it feel like you’ve done the holiday right. This is heavier on strategy and big-picture stuff than recipes (last week’s Round-up has lots of suggestions if that’s what you’re in the market for)… Read more »
. I can’t believe it’s already Friday. I have so much more to talk about, so be sure to check back on Monday and Tuesday, even though I usually take all of Thanksgiving week off. Before I get to my round-up, I wanted to announce a LEGIT giveaway that fits right in with my theme of JUST GET TOGETHER WITH FRIENDS… Read more »
Those of you who have read How to Celebrate Everything know that our rituals go into overdrive this time of year. One of my favorites (probably because I have nothing to do with it) is the play that my girls and their four cousins perform for the grown-ups as soon as we wrap up our Thanksgiving feast. They’ve been doing it for… Read more »
When I say 10 things, what I really mean to say is, Choose two or three things from this list of ten so you can trick yourself into feeling a little bit more in control of things. I woke up this morning in a panic. For the first time ever, I ordered a pasture-raised turkey from a local farm, but… Read more »
As I chronicled a few years back, my mom has a great system for Thanksgiving — every year, the day after the feast, she sits down with her legal pads and writes her post-mortem: What went wrong, what went right, what we need more of and less of next year, whether the dogs behaved, you know, the important things. Every… Read more »
I had a great line-up for you guys this week. After all, Thanksgiving is a food blogger’s Super Bowl, and no matter how long I’ve been doing this, the novelty of presenting new ideas and recipes for your holiday table never wears off. I mean that. I had so many things to tell you about — make-ahead tips, pie advice,… Read more »
Of all the things that taste better the next day — Grandma Jody’s chicken, pasta with Bolognese — I think maybe Shepherd’s Pie is right up there on my list. At least part of the reason for this is because some of my fondest childhood memories involve standing in front of my best friend’s fridge, eating forkfuls of the pie’s spice-spiked… Read more »
One night last week, Jenny and I were in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner, and Phoebe was sitting at the table, finishing her homework, surrounded by the contents of her scoliosis-inducing backpack. As Jenny checked Instagram and I scrubbed a pan of rice, talk turned to Thanksgiving — and our total lack of planning for it thus far. The… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
