Thanksgiving always falls on a Thursday. Shabbat always begins on Friday. For many Jewish families this means two nights of giant dinners in a row, just like on all major Jewish holidays.
We were fortunate to have been invited to the home of my childhood friend. Her grandmother was such a good cook that decades after my father had left Halifax he would sigh with great satisfaction and longing remembering one or another of the dishes she used to cook. My friend learned well from her grandmother. Additionally, my friend was one of those girls who grew up reading cookbooks obsessively thinking about flavor and technique.
When I received the email inviting us for Thanksgiving my kids shouted with joy. It was a beautiful meal that was so good I ate each bite slowly because each element of the meal, the brisket, the turkey, the Brussels sprouts were each a distilled essence of what that food was.
The meal was served on my friend's grandmother's dishes. Elegant, delicious meals from the 1950's where my parents ate at her grandmother's table were evoked without a word
At the end of the meal we all waddled home filled with love and good food in equal measure.
I am not a fan of turkey, but when we began planning tonight's dinner---My husband got the soft longing look on his face that is hard to resist. He asked a question with just one word "Turkey???" I relented. I figured that it would be a small crowd and bought a small turkey.
When my friend had made the turkey for yesterday she mentioned that she had made a glaze for the bird using gochujang, Korean sweet chili paste. We had introduced our friend to this magical paste a few years ago on Rosh haShanah. She loved it so much we gave her a pound tub of it.
Like my friend, I have spent lots of my childhood reading cookbooks and know that standard American cookbooks suggest rubbing butter into the turkey skin before roasting, clearly not an option for a kosher home.
Inspired by my friend I thinned the gochujang with a bit of olive oil and rubbed it into the turkey.
The starch and sugar in the paste combined with the olive oil give you a photo shoot ready turkey.
The turkey is cut up. The gravy is made and just needs to be strained. I will make the cranberry sauce when I finish writing this post. I will be making sweet potatoes in a few minutes. In a few hours we will be sitting down for the second night of Thanksgiving.
We were fortunate to have been invited to the home of my childhood friend. Her grandmother was such a good cook that decades after my father had left Halifax he would sigh with great satisfaction and longing remembering one or another of the dishes she used to cook. My friend learned well from her grandmother. Additionally, my friend was one of those girls who grew up reading cookbooks obsessively thinking about flavor and technique.
When I received the email inviting us for Thanksgiving my kids shouted with joy. It was a beautiful meal that was so good I ate each bite slowly because each element of the meal, the brisket, the turkey, the Brussels sprouts were each a distilled essence of what that food was.
The meal was served on my friend's grandmother's dishes. Elegant, delicious meals from the 1950's where my parents ate at her grandmother's table were evoked without a word
At the end of the meal we all waddled home filled with love and good food in equal measure.
I am not a fan of turkey, but when we began planning tonight's dinner---My husband got the soft longing look on his face that is hard to resist. He asked a question with just one word "Turkey???" I relented. I figured that it would be a small crowd and bought a small turkey.
When my friend had made the turkey for yesterday she mentioned that she had made a glaze for the bird using gochujang, Korean sweet chili paste. We had introduced our friend to this magical paste a few years ago on Rosh haShanah. She loved it so much we gave her a pound tub of it.
Like my friend, I have spent lots of my childhood reading cookbooks and know that standard American cookbooks suggest rubbing butter into the turkey skin before roasting, clearly not an option for a kosher home.
Inspired by my friend I thinned the gochujang with a bit of olive oil and rubbed it into the turkey.
The starch and sugar in the paste combined with the olive oil give you a photo shoot ready turkey.
The turkey is cut up. The gravy is made and just needs to be strained. I will make the cranberry sauce when I finish writing this post. I will be making sweet potatoes in a few minutes. In a few hours we will be sitting down for the second night of Thanksgiving.
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