What I’m Reading: Sam Sifton’s Thanksgiving, One Year Old
Halloween is this week, which means it’s time to start thinking about Thanksgiving. Christmas is my favorite holiday, and I imagine it always will be, for many very good reasons. Christmas is magical in that it centers around the miraculous birth of Christ, the tiny baby who came to save the world. Christmas has incredible ambience: twinkling lights and lovely smells, the joy of giving and the beauty of family traditions. The minute Thanksgiving is over, I will start celebrating Christmas. But the older I get, the more Thanksgiving wants to take the place of Christmas in my heart. And it runs a close second. Thanksgiving is a celebration of gratitude, and the longer I live, the more I have to be thankful for. It’s people I love all gathered together. It’s the capstone of autumn, my very favorite season. And finally, it’s a day that celebrates bounty, centering around one very carefully prepared meal. It has the potential to be a foodie’s dream.
And oh yes, I dream. Recently, Sam Sifton has been helping me. Last year, when the food blogging world was raving about his book, Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well (it’s still one of the top five bestsellers on Amazon in the Thanksgiving category a year later), I had a four month old and had just relocated across the country. I bought a copy and set it aside for next year. I spent the next 11 months eyeing it on the bookshelf at intervals, but I wanted to wait just long enough to be justifiably excited by its contents, until, like October. And now, well, next October is this October.
Notice I said above that Thanksgiving has the potential to be a foodie’s dream. That’s because it also has the potential to be a foodie’s worst nightmare. I will just confess it now: I am a Thanksgiving snob. I dream of a Thanksgiving dinner that is completely from scratch. I admit it, I inwardly turn up my nose at canned cranberry sauce. And Stove Top stuffing. And green bean casserole made with Campbell’s soup. And frozen dinner rolls that come in a plastic bag. And store-bought pies. Every Thanksgiving dinner I have ever eaten has involved one or more of these. I mean, let’s face it: Thanksgiving is a big job. It’s tons of work to put on a Thanksgiving dinner, and the grocery stores overflow with Thanksgiving convenience foods. For those of us who work, and that’s most of us, those convenience foods offer some relief from the incredible work of a Thanksgiving dinner.
But. Now. Sam Sifton has helped me believe that it’s possible to host a Thanksgiving dinner that’s completely homemade. No cans (except maybe the pumpkin purée). No boxes. No plastic bags. Nothing made in a commercial bakery. All it takes is a bit of careful planning and maybe a little bit of working ahead, the weekend before and an evening or two leading up to the The Big Day. In my mind, that’s totally doable, and worth it for this very special once-a-year meal.
At the same time, you say, there are people to consider. People who can’t imagine a Thanksgiving table without green bean casserole or canned cranberry sauce. I hear you. I have some of those people, too. And I admit, I’ve been working on converting them. What I’ve discovered is that if you make the homemade version of what they’re used to, they will embrace it, because it inevitably tastes better. So do not be discouraged by people. People are malleable. Just don’t tell them, “Hey, I’m going to make you change your mind about that green bean casserole with the Campbell’s Soup.” They might not like that. They might resist. And you don’t want resistance – you want smiling faces and full bellies at your Thanksgiving table.
I’m not hosting Thanksgiving this year, because our place isn’t large enough for the crowd from Michigan who will be descending upon the D.C. suburbs that week, but I will be helping my sister-in-law Jen plan the menu and do the cooking. She just finished reading Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well, too, and it’s going to be fun to talk about the ideas we’ve come away with, the new things we want to try. For me, those include the fresh bread stuffing, the creamed Brussels sprouts, pear cobbler, and homemade pecan pie.
If you’re feeling at all overwhelmed by the prospect of Thanksgiving, or you just want some advice and encouragement about how to do Thanksgiving well, Sam Sifton’s treatise on the holiday is a must-read. Five stars.
