Thanksgiving Wine Picks from the Pros

Just as your Thanksgiving dinner is only as good as the guests who show up -- "and who invited crazy cousin Carl? "-- a round-up of wine suggestions for the big day is only as good as the people making them. So you're in great hands here, folks, as you shall see. To give our experts a bit of a twist, I asked what their pick would taste best and worst with, since matching the full groaning board of T-Day delights is near impossible (especially as long as people insist putting marshmallows on sweet potatoes. Please note that modifier in the name and then stop).

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

This Bird Has Flown

This Thanksgiving we gave thanks for having a whole day to wreck and re-wreck the kitchen. It ended up just the two of us, so that took the clock away, plus that old problem of how do you entertain guests and prepare to feed them simultaneously, assuming they don't want to watch a live cooking show. (Remember, cooking shows now tend to cut the cooking itself out or insist on an Alton Brown for play-by-play.) Nope, the day was just us having at a wide range of recipes in a dishwasherless, microwave-absent kitchen.

Along with a works-well but is of its era Wedgewood stove/oven. That partially led to us eschewing a big bird, not to mention Chryss is a pescatarian to boot (to fin?), so a Cornish hen seemed plenty for me. Othwerwsie it was about sides, for if you serve enough, they take up the center of the plate anyway. Especially when one is a potato and mushroom goat cheese gratin en croute, since potatoes need some flaky crust atop to be complete (especially when laden with cheese-daubed bechamel). This was a recipe from Hatfield's in the LA Times, one of those dishes that ends up looking simple but is multi-stepped, and turned out even better with a few dashes of hot sauce that all that carb-starch-creaminess just devoured.

For a hint of heat never hurt any dish, just ask the long-cooked green beans (recipe by Suzanne Tracht of Jar; secret theme of the day--let us give thanks for great chefs 90 miles to our south). These cook slow in a soupy-stock but you still flash blanch them, and then they get onioned and chili-ed and bay leafed and balsamiced up. Never give thanks for a green been casserole when you can do this to them instead.

Do give thanks, however, for Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghi's brilliant non-vegetarian vegetable cookbook (that's a crucial, no brown rice has been steamed to bland your meal, distinction). His dish was our yam substitute, not that I don't like sweet potatoes, and I know the two are different things even if they're collated-confused in our culture. I'm not so sold, however, on the super-sizing of the sweetness of sweet potatoes. Who wants marshmallows on that? Why bronze the orchid? I prefer sneaking some savory in, and that's where Ottolenghi's recipe was brilliant. You slice the squash thinninsh (and any winter squash will do, even if he asks for pumpkin--we used both butternut and kabocha), at about a quarter inch, and then coat that with a zippy mix of olive oil, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, parsley, thyme, lemon zest, garlic, salt and pepper. Roast. They get soft enough you can even eat the skin. On that you dollop sour cream stirred with dill.

Fresh herbs, what a wild idea, at it would be if I were transported back to my childhood, when I believed basil and thyme all had the last name McCormick and came from jars that grew a bit dusty in my mom's pantry. Now, rosemary always grows in my yard, the chopping of it brown-greening the cutting board as it was prepared for the Cornish hen. Again, growing up my mom would have stuffed the hens with Rice-a-Roni (I was surprised to learn what a different treat San Francisco would be when I finally got there as an adult), that ersatz saffron something I once actually craved (or was that the MSG?). Now I know better, and stuff the hens with dried cranberries plumped in Grand Marnier, chopped toasted walnuts, and sauteed kale. The hen gets rubbed with butter (a word I often typo as better, a true Freudian kitchen slip), sprinkled with orange zest, liberally seasoned. Roasted. To be honest, the bird was delish, but I sort of liked the stuffing best. Just like any more traditional Thanksgiving, I guess.

There's a Turley White Coat, as you can't have too much Roussanne. I mean too much great Roussanne.

And then we do have the neighbors and their friend over and Cattie back for dessert. There's a lot of after dinner stuff to drink in this house, so we did. And had a bourbon pecan pie from John Besh's My New Orleans (and why, of all foods, is he eating ice cream on the cover? that's clearly not a Cajun-Creole food, as it so rarely has pig in it). After all, one of the trips we had to give thanks for this year was to New Orleans. The recipe opts for 3/4 cup molasses to a 1/2 cup corn syrup, which for Chryss's taste made it too shoo-fly, but I liked its deep dark sweet--we didn't sweeten our whipped cream and that worked perfectly (to my palate). It could have been pecan-ier, perhaps, but can't we all.

Overall, the message was this--there's always something new for which to be thankful, so don't get caught in ruts.

When Is a Restaurant Not a Restaurant? When It's a Jar

There's that old line, "Simple is not always best but the best is always simple." I guess I believe that about 75% of the time, which leaves me room for the dazzle of Hearst Castle, the prose of Joyce, and moles of infinite ingredients known only to the wisest of abuelas. Then there's steak. It would seem easy to do one well, just get a high grade cut of beef, season, cook to temperature. But if that were true, why do some steaks sing, and others make you question why you want to chew cow slabs about three-and-a-half bites in?

I'm not sure I have the answer to that, being a writer second and cook third, but as an eater first and foremost, I know 100% sure that the best steak I can get is at Jar in Los Angeles. Part of that is the room, no doubt, swank as all get-out with its non-ironic paneling, b&w photos and color swatches adorning those walls, then those simple flying saucer light fixtures, too many of them almost, but always emitting just the right glow. I was there last when it was still daylight outside and the room almost seemed impossible. It says, "Here, you need a martini, dry," and makes you want to call your date a doll. Heck, for all we know, steaks weren't even bad for you in those days.

But the steaks are splendid. That good grill char, but also the pleasure only beef brings, a mouth-watering joy of the chew, but the best never become too much chew--it feels good to sense the food breaking down in your mouth, if that's not too explicit. A Jar steak won't get to that point that mediocre steaks do, when the meat sort of seems to go to pulp--like you can chew the flavor out. (I know I'm making painstaking, and perhaps gross-making, too much out of this.) Part of that is the fat seems incorporated--you want that fat taste, but you don't want its texture too much. (It's like wanting butter in the flaky dough of the croissant, not on top or oozing out.)

In the case of my last steak there, it probably helped it was aged, which means the enzymes do their magical chemistry trick, and the steak gets yet smoother, the fat more integrated, everything better. You almost don't need the lobster Bearnaise or the creamy horseradish sauce, but, of course, you do, as luxury might as well lap in luxury. (I might just eat the sauces on their own.)

But, as for that last steak, it was one not on the regular menu, the oxymoronic bone-in filet (no doubt the bone helped add to the flavor, too). The waiter sold it well, and it lived up to his billing, all 14 oz. of it. But then there was the billing. I really don't get the reserve waitstaff seem to feel when announcing specials--how hard is it to say, "Those lobster and shiitake stuffed squash blossoms are $16," (or whatever they cost--we didn't order them, so we don't know). I guess part of it is, if you're eating at a place like Jar, you shouldn't suddenly get thrifty. I get that. But I also want to know when the steak--and again I must say it might have been the best beef I've ever had--I ordered would set me back $63. That's a good twenty bucks more than any other steak meant for one.