Cornucopia: Appetizers
Thanksgiving is my kind of holiday, and I’ll tell you why. First off, Thanksgiving is uniquely New World. I mean, everybody has a Fourth of July. No offense to other countries; you know that I love you. It’s just that many of our holidays are carryovers from the cultures from which we sprung, whereas Thanksgiving has to do with setting out on new adventures and being rewarded for one’s daring.
Which brings me to my second point. Other holidays usually celebrate some historical event, such as the birth of a religion, or the new year, or the beginning of political freedom. Thanksgiving celebrates celebration itself. Like the first Pilgrims, we feast on Thanksgiving just because we can, and we give thanks for the bounty that allows us to do so. We load the table with food in exaltation of the fact that we have food with which to load the table. Historically, all of us are immigrants here, even “Native” Americans, and all of us or our forebearers risked something in coming; this land of plenty is our reward. Thanksgiving is our opportunity to count our blessings, not because of religion or politics, but simply because we can.
To move from the soapbox to the kitchen, it’s high time to start talking about with what, exactly, we loaded the table this year. After an abbreviated breakfast of turkey sausage and bacon fried up by my brother, the turkey was stuffed, trussed, and stuck in the oven, letting us all relax for a while in front of the fire to a game of Risk. I quickly dropped out of the game in favor of a couchside nap, leaving Matt, Drew, and my dad to battle over the fate of the world. When I awoke about an hour later, it seemed time for some refreshment, so I threw together this camembert and mushroom fricasee, a Food & Wine knockoff of Daniel Boulud, and served it to the gamers.
To say that I threw it together sounds blasé, but it really only took ten minutes. I stuck the cheese in the oven with the turkey and let it warm for about ten minutes while I sautéed the mushrooms. Then I mixed in the walnuts, which I had toasted the night before, poured the whole thing over the cheese, and set it out with a spoon and some water crackers. It was the kind of dish that couldn’t possibly go wrong, for me at least. Matt wasn’t swooning over the mushrooms, and Drew took issue with the walnuts (since one of his pet peeves is nuts in things that “shouldn’t” have nuts in them), but I thought it was just about perfect.
The few minutes before dinner were the busiest, of course, so I delegated the responsibility of making the salad to Matt, who stepped up admirably. It’s basically a salad that I’ve made before a couple times. It’s very simple, but very good.
The description over at Leite’s Culinaria called this soup, from Andrea Immer’s Everyday Dining with Wine, an American version of French onion soup, which seemed very in keeping with the whole New World bounty theme. Like most soups, it was easily prepared ahead of time, with only two minutes under the broiler needed to finish it off. The sweetness of the carmalized onions and apples layered with the savory sage and the saltiness of the cheddar and bacon. Although I don’t care for cheddar and bacon individually, the end result was great. Even Matt, a known soupophobic, gave it rave reviews, reasoning that with all the bread, cheese, and onions, it was hardly like soup at all.
