This is a really dumb idea. I've got enough to do anyway. But I really feel an obligation to you, my readers, to do some sort of Thanksgiving post. So here we go. I'll be updating it during the day as time allows.
Here is my current, rough to-do list:
The top section is stuff I'm making. The items with asterisks next to them are the extras that I haven't committed to. So I'm committed to the ham, a sauce made out of the ham braising liquid, and gratin dauphinois. The other stuff is lagniappe. By the way, when I'm done with this, it's all going chez Wooden Spoon. (Boy, I really like italicizing all this French. Ooh la la. I wonder if I'll get all the diacritical marks right. Probably not.)
Below those six items is a very rough timeline to help me get done. The items with an "X" are done. So the extra wine is in the refrigerator (I already took over three bottles of red; I just put a white in to cool), the iced tea I made a couple days ago is poured into a half-gallon milk jug, and the eggplants for eggplant crap are in the oven. It's almost 12:30 pm. Let's see what I get done.
12:40 -- The eggplants are still cooking. They'll probably need another 15-30 minutes. They're always hard to judge, and they really need to be cooked enough before they're pureed, or the result will lack savor no matter what I do. But I've taken precautions by maxing out the amount of garlic in the recipe. :) This is going to be a garlic bomb, which seems to be how everyone likes it anyway. I just now ground the walnuts and did everything else except adding the not-yet-done eggplants and the olive oil.
One thing that's not explicitly on my schedule is personal time: when do I eat, or take a shower, or whatever. It's foolish not to allow for time when you know you need it. I'm hoping to shower either while the ham is in, or after everything is done. Most things are going to wind up going over cold and needing reheating anyway. I also built in time to run the dishwasher when I was cooking the ham. I should have run the dishwasher last night, but we're having a drought locally, and I'm trying not to run it until it's absolutely full. I also forgot about a social engagement last night, and didn't do as much prep as I otherwise would have. I may pay for that later. But we're supposed to be starting at 5:30 or so, with dinner actually going on the table around 7, so hopefully I've left enough time. I also fed myself and the dogs well when I got up at about 9:30, and worked through my morning routine of e-mail and blog-checking. But I've probably, as usual, slacked off too much.
12:50 -- Eggplants are smelling good.
1:20 -- I checked the eggplants; they're still not done. They're never done on time. I think they must load them up with water before selling them to the grocers, although I guess that's better than having them look like well-used, flat soccer balls. I slit them fully open and put them back in the oven. I also cut up a mirepoix for the ham, and mixed about 4 cups of braising liquid out of about 2 cups of various wines and 2 cups of chicken stock. The best thing to use here is unsalted chicken stock, because the ham is already salty. But what I wind up doing later in the process is dumping in enough heavy cream so that the finished sauce is at an acceptable level of salinity. The spices went into a huge tea ball -- an excellent purchase I once made from Lee Valley -- and into the pot, along with the mirepoix, ham, and braising liquid. The oven was already hot from the eggplant; they're both in there right now.
I have this crazy idea that, for braises with wine, the more types of wine in there, the better. So, I have some dry vermouth, some local white wine that was open, a little bit of madeira as called for in the recipe, and a small amount of a Côtes du Rhône that was open. The whole mess went in a bog pot on top of the stove and was brought to a simmer, then put in the oven aside the eggplant. Yay.
1:30 -- Celeste testifies in a comment that my ham is "the best stuff ever." Well, thanks, Celeste. Meanwhile, the eggplants are close, but I decide to shove them back in for a few more minutes, with the oven temperature reduced from 425° F. to 350. That's what the ham needs to be at anyway.
A little more about the ham: It's another Julia Child recipe (almost everything I'm fixing today is). It's braised with wine, veggies, and spices. Then my own change is to puree the veggies into the braising liquid and add cream, then use that as a sauce of sorts. It's salty, but delicious.
The ham is also the source of my first couple of roadblocks. Usually I actually cook a small smoked half-shoulder instead of a ham. But this time I picked up a couple of half-hams that were about 7 1/2 pounds each. Well, guess what? I didn't really have a pan I could cover, sit the ham in upright, and put in the oven. You'd think that with all the kitchen implements I have, I'd have a big enough covered roasting pan. Nope. I finally put the smaller of the two half-hams in my 5 (or 6, I can't remember) quart Le Creuset dutch oven. It's on its big cut surface, instead of sitting with the fat side up, but it fit. Barely. The second problem is that I realized earlier today that both my meat thermometers are broken, and I never bought a new one. Well, I guess we'll be winging that. People winged it for hundreds of years, right? I don' need no steenkin' meat thermometer. :)
1:50 -- Well, f$ck those f$cking eggplants. After almost 90 minutes, they really ought to be done. So I took them out. They're cooling now for a few minutes, after which I'll scrape the innards away from the skin, add that to the ground walnut mixture, puree that for a bit, then stir in olive oil by hand. Then I can put that in a bowl, make it look pretty, and leave it be until I put it in the car. I think that flavorwise it's about a 6 or 7 out of 10: too much garlic, not enough eggplant flavor. I think next time I'll use 2 1/2 pounds of eggplant. I guess that'll take even longer to cook. But when you pull it out at the right time, it's really good. It's lost most of its water, but it's still moist; there's a little bit of browning going on; the eggplant will taste slightly sweet. I probably needed another 5-10 minutes. Bah.
By the way, this is post #300 on "Eat at Joe's!". It's taken me about 3 1/2 years to get there. I have an average of 3 1/2 comments per post, which seems pretty cool to me.
I'd really like to take a shower now. Maybe I can. Or maybe I'll start the succotash early: it'll probably need to be reheated anyway. It's nothing fancy: a little onion sauteed in some bacon grease, then I add a couple of packages each of frozen corn kernels and lima beans that I bought yesterday. I thought it might be nice if I took a vegetable, and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. So there ya go.
2:35 -- Ok, the eggplant/walnut dip is done. I pureed in the eggplant flesh, stirred in olive oil, corrected seasoning, and prettified it in a little bowl. The crackers to go with it are sitting out on top of the bowl. I also washed some dishes by hand, then ran the now full-to-bursting dishwasher. I have one of those roll-around models that has to be hooked up to the sink, and my current kitchen is not commodious. So running the dishwasher kinda puts a kink in doing much else in the kitchen.
You might wonder why I'm running the dishwasher anyway, especially in the middle of a drought. I measured how much water the dishwasher uses, and it's about a gallon per cycle. It generally runs either seven or nine cycles, depending on settings. Would I use 7-9 gallons of water when washing and rinsing the same load of dishes by hand? Probably. Also, my back has been killing me, and one of the surest ways to set it off is to wash dishes. I'm glad to have the dishwasher anyway, because I have next to no counter space for dirty dishes, so it's nice to be able to shove them in there and have them be out of the way. I washed everything else by hand that couldn't or wouldn't go in the dishwasher, and put up the dishes that were already dry. The longer and more I can keep down the clutter and confusion in the kitchen, the better I'll be.
The ham is simmering merrily, so I reduced the oven temperature to 325°. The slower I can cook the ham, the better: I think the texture comes out better that way. It'll be down to 300° or 275° later, maybe even 250°. I'm sitting on the couch with my shirt off, drinking a big glass of iced tea. I think I'll get in the shower in a little bit. But the sooner I take a shower, the more sweat I'm going to accumulate between then and when I actually leave. The oven has been on for almost three hours now, and the house is a little warm. it's 74° at the airport, which is a little warm for Thanksgiving day, to say the least. The record is apparently 76°, and it was 75° earlier, but it's coming down now.
3:00 -- N.B.: I'm both adding to sections above and adding new sections while I type this. I forget things, or want to expand on things, or whatever. I put the timestamps in when I feel the need. No need to be too O.C. about this, right?
3:25 -- Dammit. I knew I'd forgotten something. At least it wasn't culinary: I was going to put in a load of laundry so I'd have something to wear this evening. There's still time, so I put in a load. I actually overfilled the washing machine and mixed whites and colors because I'm still trying to save water. Half of me feels like "Oh, right: champagne problems. What a whiner." The other half feels like I'm not doing nearly enough, and that 3-4 months from now I'll be complaining that I had to move to Arizona, where they have some water. :/
I think I'm gonna go start the succotash early.
3:40 -- Pulled out a large, not very dirty item from the dishwasher, and inserted a smaller, dirtier one. I think I'm f$cking off again, losing steam. I eat a couple Reese's Cups for the chocolate content: maybe it'll keep me going. No one is really reading this anyway, although I am getting a lot of hits for people looking for places open on Thanksgiving. Damn. Does no one get to stay home and cook? Or does no one want to? Hits are down for the day overall, but I figured that was because everyone was somewhere eating or cooking. Of course, not everyone is: I've already been IMing with a friend in the northeast U.S. who doesn't really have plans for today. Her family lives nearby, but she's blowing them off for today, which I can understand. And I've already seen two blog posts by local friends who are home sick. Ugh. Holidays can be yucky when you don't have other people around. I've got no company right now except the dogs, but I'll at least be with friends later.
4:05 -- Started the succotash. The dogs are whining at me because they want to be fed. They usually aren't fed for another hour or two, and I gave them all dog bones a little while ago; maybe the smell of bacon grease is inflaming their hunger. :) I'm thinking of adding a little bit of leftover creamed spinach to the succotash. It might turn some people off, but that's just more for me. :) The dishwasher is done with the wash part, so I can disconnect it from the sink and get it out of the way. The washer is also done, so I took the clothes out and put them in the dryer. I suspect the ham is done too, but I just don't want to deal with it yet, so I turned the oven down to 200° and left it in. But I've got to take it out pretty soon and start messing with it. I also still need to do the potatoes and mess with the ham juices.
4:20 -- I'm going to say the ham is done. It tastes pretty good, but might be a little overdone. It's a little brown on the top, probably because I never basted it like I was supposed to (in addition to probably over-cooking it anyway). I still need to start potatoes and mess with the ham juices. I'd also still like to take that shower, and I should probably call my partner in crime to see how things are going with her.
You know, I only drank about a third of that glass of tea. :) My chest also hurts. Maybe I'm having a heart attack. I think the most common day to die or have a heart attack or something like that is your birthday, but I bet $mas and Thanksgiving are way up there too. More likely I've just got some of the creeping crud that has other people sick right now. So I get to go give it to everyone else at the party. :) Or maybe I'm fine, but will pick up something there. Yay. ;)
5:15 -- Well, the ham is out and the juices are degreasing. The succotash is "plated," as it were. Partner in crime is doing fine, although running a little behind, which is ok. Maybe that'll give me time for that shower. :) Potatoes are in. I tried using a mandoline, and I'd'a been better off just cutting them by hand. What's the thing you shouldn't do when cooking for company? Do something different. :)
5:55 -- The potatoes are close to done, so they're turned off. The reduced, thickened, enriched braising juices are probably as fine as they're gonna get.
6 pm -- I think everything's as done or bagged up or whatever as it's gonna get, until I take that shower I've been talking about for hours. I'd like to reload the dishwasher, but I guess that can wait. I finally fed the dogs, so they're happy.
6:15 -- I'm clean! Yay! But not totally dry. :) The food is ready to go, except for putting the sauce in a bowl or something. Then I can start loading up. I was planning to get there between 5:30 and 7, but really wanted to be done a bit earlier. But it's fine: the turkey should still be in the oven at the other place. I'll take my computer with me. Maybe I can use the network chez Wooden Spoon.
Phil says, in part, that the tension that kept him reading until the end was "wondering whether you'd get clean before entering a warm house crowded full of people." Well Phil, that was part of what kept me going too. :)
Lenore says "That was very entertaining, Joe. :) Your food sounds so good, too." Lenore, thanks. The ham was about a 5 or 6, and so was the ham glop. The succotash was about a 4 or 5. The potatoes, inadequately salted, were about a 6, as was the eggplant caviar. The tea was a 6 or 7, but didn't carry the weight of anything else. So maybe I averaged 5 or 6 on the arbitrary Joe scale. / I think it was Baudelaire, or Rimbaud, or Rabelais, or someone like that :) who said something like "Anyone may talk of himself, provided he can be amusing." I'm glad I could help out. :)
So, I was back home about 12:45. I hope the intelligent reader can elucidate that the 6 1/2 hour lacuna means I had a good time. :-P
1:45 am, 23 November 2007 -- "Good night and get out!" -- MG, quoting someone. :)
Maura, your hosting and company were fabulous too. But you knew that. :)
