Big Tom...

Tom is taking up a fair amount of space in the fridge. He is the biggest turkey I've ever seen, and my brother informs me we are cooking him on Thursday. I wonder if we really should get started today. How long does it take to cook a 21-pound turkey?

I don't have years of experience cooking turkeys. Mom cooked all our turkeys up until four years ago, and our first Thanksgiving without her was painful in more ways than one. We dried out the turkey, we made glue instead of cornbread dressing, and we generally made a mess of the dinner.

Since turkey duties now fall to my younger brother and me, we've been experimenting. We held a competition one year. We each had a 12 pound turkey. I brined mine, Steve did not. I won. But Steve really won because my gravy was too salty to eat. His was perfect.

Last year, we roasted a beautiful bird to bronze bliss and decorated the platter with oranges and sage bundles. We roasted two extra breasts to eat, using the whole turkey as our centerpiece. We never had to carve the golden boy because we had plenty of turkey breast, plus a ham, and an untold number of side dishes for our 35 guests. Steve tells me he put the bird in the extra fridge and promplty forgot about it, eventually tossing it a few weeks later. Not a very happy ending for that Tom.

So here we are, looking at this monstrous fowl, and wondering what's to become of him. We're thinking we'll try the salting technique in the November issue of Bon Appetit. Mainly because we don't have a bucket big enough to do a full brine. We realize we're treading on thin ice because we don't have extra turkey waiting in the wings if we screw this up. And that is part of the fun. That, and being together on Thanksgiving, cooking, laughing, sharing. Creating a story for next year. Happy Thanksgiving.

Rosemary Scented Cranberry Sauce...

Not that there's anything wrong with cranberry sauce in a can (it will grace our Thanksgiving table as it always has), but sometimes you want something a little more fancy. I normally make an orange infused cranberry sauce but this year, I'm taking inspiration from the garden.

This rosemary scented cranberry sauce is tart and lemony, too, from the addition of a little lemon zest. A splash of gin never hurt anyone either, and it picks up on the pine notes from the rosemary. Give it a try.

(istock photo - Liza McCorkle)


Rosemary Scented Cranberry Sauce

Makes 3 cups

1 (12-ounce) package of fresh or frozen cranberries
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup ruby Port wine (inexpensive is OK)
2 (4-inch) whole sprigs of fresh rosemary
Zest of 1 large lemon
1 tablespoon gin (optional)
1/3 cup dried cranberries or dried cherries
Pinch ground cloves
Pinch freshly ground nutmeg
Pinch salt

1. Stir cranberries, sugar, Port and rosemary springs in a heave saucepan and place over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil.

2. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Stir in lemon zest and gin. Simmer another 5 minutes or so and remove from heat.

3. Stir in cranberries, cloves, nutmeg and salt. Chill until ready to serve. Keeps 1 week, covered, in fridge.

Zagat Zingers....

Everyone needs a laugh now and then -- especially in these grim, gloomy times. If you sign up, Zagat sends a weekly email out with restaurant openings and other news. If you scroll to the bottom of the email, they post a quote called "Outtake of the Week" gleaned, I'm sure from the Zagat surveys.

Some are downright hilarious, including the one I read this week: "Only the flies on our table enjoyed the meal." It helps to understand how Zagat guides are put together. Some people think the ratings are done by professional restaurant critics.

It's really foodies who rate the restaurants. Some are professionals but most are not -- they are just food lovers or what I think of as restaurant groupies. For each restaurant listed for rating, the person rating gives a number for food, decor and service, along with a cost of one dinner with one drink plus a tip.

There is also space for comments, and I'm guessing the tickling tidbits published as "Outtakes" come from those comments. Sometimes they are zingers -- like this one: "Take a look at the staff on the way in -- that's the last you'll see of them."

Here's a link to the "Outtakes" page of the Zagat website. Go to the home page if you want to sign up for the weekly newsletter yourself.

Salsa Bliss...

It's no secret that Mexican food is my favorite cuisine. I like gourmet Mex, Tex-Mex, and everything in between. I even tend to judge a Mexican restaurant first on it's salsa offerings.

El Chubasco in Park City, Utah gets high marks for its salsa bar. Sitting smack dab in the middle of the dining room of this cheap eats (one of the very few inexpensive restaurants in Park City that isn't a chain) is a salsa bar, featuring more than 15 different salsas, all made from scratch.

Each salsa is labeled with chiles to indicate the heat level, with one chile for mild and four chiles for set-your-pants-on-fire hot. Most are in the three chile range, and those were spicy enough for this gringo.

I felt like a kid in a candy store on my first visit, sampling nine of the 15 or so salsas. On subsequent trips, I showed only slightly more restraint by taking just four or five. My favorite was the arbol, a smoky roasted tomato and chile de arbol (a skinny - usually dried - chile similar to cayenne) salsa, but I also loved the fresh, pico de gallo, studded with enough fresh, minced serranos to wake up any slacker taste bud.

Pico de gallo is really a simple salsa to make. It's best to make it in late summer, when tomatoes are at their peak, but I make it all year, substituting Roma tomatoes for regular ones. It's a great accompaniment to grilled or baked fish.

Pico de Gallo
Makes 2 cups

1/2 of a large, white onion, finely chopped
2 pounds tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped
2-3 jalapenos or serranos, minced (remove seeds for less heat)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Juice of 1/2 or 1 lime (to your tastes)
Salt and pepper

Toss all ingredients together and let rest 10 to 30 minutes before serving. Keeps 3 days, covered in the refrigerator.

Pumpkin Eater...

Who knew that a raw pumpkin could be so appealing? I returned home from an evening meeting earlier this week, only to discover that my darling little grasshopper slayer decided that she needed a piece of pumpkin, sans pie.

Chloe was perched on top of "her" chair when we returned and when she saw me turn on the light, look at the desecrated pumpkin on the dining room table, she crouched and pinned her ears back. Skylar, on the other hand, leaned up against the bar and looked at me, saying with those adorable brown, button eyes, "It wasn't me, Mom, she did it."

Chloe has separation anxiety issues and every time we leave the house, she finds some mischief to amuse herself until we return, even though she's confined to the family/kitchen room. Animal experts would suggest that I put her little hinny in a crate while we're gone. I know I probably should, but then Skylar would be uncrated and what kind of trauma would that cause? Anyone have any advice?

Chloe was subdued the rest of the evening, probably with a tummy ache, but otherwise she was fine. The next day, I talked with my friend Eileen, who owns See Spot Shop, and after she stopped laughing, she told me that pumpkin is not harmful to dogs, and that Chloe likely just got an extra dose of antioxidants. It wasn't like I was going to make a pie with the darn pumpkin anyway... it's best to use the small, sugar pumpkins for pie.

I just put the pumpkin there to remind me that it was fall, and Thanksgiving is coming. Sometimes it's hard to remember that when the temperature is 80 degrees outside. And Chloe was quick to remind me that even fall has a short season.

Thanksgiving on 200 calories....

Did I catch your attention? An article in last weekend's USA Weekend insert in my newspaper caught my attention with " A Lighter Thanksgiving: only 682 total calories."

This just after I sent a text message to my brother about a luscious sounding pasta, cauliflower and cheese gratin recipe I'd seen in Bon Appetit magazine, that I was certain should be on our "new dish" Thanksgiving list.

My text said something about replacing the pasta with more cauliflower and using less cream, cheese and butter for a "lighter" version. (I blogged about Steve earlier this year after he dropped 25 pounds just by eating turkey bacon ... and running 4 miles every day for months, but I digress).

He immediately texted back, and I quote, "Girlfriend, Thanksgiving is NOT about the calories." Now that's a reason to be thankful. We'll have a normal, traditional Thanksgiving -- no obsessing about the amount of food and fat. After all, what other national holiday do we have that is all about food, nothing but food?

I don't mean to sound snippy about Pam Anderson's Thanksgiving-Lite meal -- she's lost 45 pounds (and wrote a successful cookbook about it). Her article says that a typical Thanksgiving meal is more than 1,200 calories, so her lighter meal may be an inspiration to people who need to watch their intake on this and every other day (and don't we all). Seriously, I had just offered to "lighten" an new dish in honor of my brother's "lighter" self.

But for me (and clearly this trait runs in the family), Thanksgiving is the opposite of restraint and moderation. I can be moderate and mindful for 364 days. But on day 332 this year, I'm going to indulge. I might have seconds. I might have six desserts. I might regret it all on day 333 but on Thanksgiving, I'll eat like it was the last Thanksgiving -- or the first. I imagine that the first Thanksgiving was a cornucopia of foods and both sides did the polite thing, sampling a little bit of what everyone brought to the table.

At the end of the day, I may very well wish that I'd followed Anderson's Thanksgiving plan. But until then, I'll be planning, shopping, cooking and stuffing my way to satiated bliss.

A Bouquet of Tea?

No doubt about it. Tea is a hot trend right now. Of course, since tea has been brewed for thousands of years, calling it a trend may seem silly. But take a look at the tea shelf in any grocery store these days, and you'll see what I mean.

There is a tea for virtually every situation. Need calmness? There's a tea for you. Want to detox? Yup, got that, too. Want a weird combination tea? Like green tea with chocolate and orange? Found it. Maybe you just want to pamper yourself? You're in luck. There's a gazillion options for that one.

I bought one of those "lifestyle" teas recently, sucked in by the pretty package and description. It's called dream spirit by a company called Herbescent and here's what it promises: "A fragrant mystical tea, made of floral botanicals to guide you into peaceful relaxation and surreal meditations."

Doesn't that just melt the tenseness away? There is only one problem. When you pop open the lid, it smells like potpourri. I mean, it smells lovely, but it smells like a bunch of dried flowers. I steeped the tea anyway, even though it was hard to get past the perennial scent.

The tea tastes exactly like it smells. It isn't tea. It's aromatherapy! The ingredient list includes lavender, rose petals, chamomile blossoms, hibiscus flowers and chrysanthemum petals. Now, I know chamomile and hibiscus are used quite often in tea. But I gotta tell you that in tandem with the rest of the flower garden, they don't make the best drinking tea.

Here's what I can say. Even though the dream spirit flavor isn't my cup of tea, this company does make a wide variety of other teas -- normal-ish ones, too -- so I'm going to give them another shot. Because I like their packaging. And I love tea. And most of all, because I'm certain that they can do better than this bouquet of tea.

I Could'va Had a Soup!

Last weekend, there was a coupon in my Sunday paper for a new soup from Campbell's under their V8 brand. I drink V8 juice (finally switch to the low sodium version, which was painful, but I have a little trick...I douse it with a sprinkling of cayenne powder).

But I digress... this post is about the new V8 soups. I bought three -- southwestern corn, golden butternut squash and tomato herb. They also make a garden broccoli and sweet red pepper.

I completely adore the southwestern corn. The corn soup is thick, creamy and has a nice kick of heat. I topped it with some leftover popcorn and it really helped "pop" the corn flavor.

The tomato herb is also yummy. It, too, could use a little doctoring, and I found that a sprinkling of grated Parmesan really brought out the sweetness of the thick, red tomato base.

The butternut squash wasn't as good. It tasted strange to me, so I looked at the ingredient list, and figured out the problem. Potatoes are the third ingredient in the squash soup, so it waters down the taste of the squash. Too bad, because butternut squash soup can be absolutely divine. I have a recipe for butternut squash soup in my cookbook, The Great Ranch Cookbook, with apples and chipotle. It is divine, but takes a bit of work.

It's not nearly as easy as opening a carton of the V8 butternut squash soup, although figuring out how to open the V8 boxes is a bit of challenge. The boxes are small (16 oz.) and the nutritional content varies by soup, but 1 serving of the corn soup (8 oz) is 150 calories and 3 grams of fat, while the tomato soup is 90 calories and 0 fat grams for a cup.

The only downside is the amount of sodium, which also varies by soup (between 590 and 750 milligrams -- 25% to 31% of the recommended daily allowance.) But you can find lots of other soups, even some made by Campbell's, with as much as 890 mg and some as low as 60 mg (their low sodium cream of mushroom soup). The RDA is 2,400 mg. So the V8 soups are not outrageously laden with sodium.

I love soup, and soup season is upon us (some more than others...we're still in the 80's temperature range although nights and mornings are cooling off...finally). While I'd love to say that I have time to make a fresh batch of soup every week, I don't. So I'll keep a couple of these V8 soups in my pantry for those nights when nothing sounds better than a steaming bowl of soup.