The Un-Thanksgiving -- Hijacked by Cook's Illustrated

Several weeks ago, we noticed that we had failed to commit to a plan for Thanksgiving.

We almost never travel (can't face the traffic), but since Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, we instead try to lure relatives out our way. My brother-in-law is from near here, so sometimes he and my sister stop by; Steve's brother recently married a woman who used to live in our little town, and we had our fingers crossed that they might come again this year. And sometimes my mom makes the trip up from Virginia. We then fill in with graduate students, colleagues (often European), and other friends who might not have somewhere to go. I aim to invite people of all ages, but especially children. We try to fill up the house -- my ideal is 16, 18, 22.

We've only ever hit 22 in Philadelphia, because we have even more relatives on the east coast -- several generations worth -- and we managed to score our upstairs neighbors as well as a Chinese graduate student to add to the mix. For that epic Thanksgiving we threw the children, and the exchange student, into the car and drove to Philadelphia on Tuesday, cooked and baked all day Wednesday (can you say "manic baking"?), ate and ate (and played ping pong) on Thursday, went sightseeing with our exchange student on Friday, and drove home on Saturday.

But generally, we like to stay put. And this year, it was just going to be the four of us. Which seemed kind of sad and pathetic. We thought of inviting ourselves over to one or another friend's house, but in the end I said: "let's go to Great Wolf Lodge." For us, this was kind of funny -- it's not the sort of thing we do. But it was terrific. Comfy beds, big room, charades and Malaysian take-away to offset the kitsch and the water park, which were also fairly awesome, each in their own way. Our son said "here we are staying at Great Wolf Lodge ironically, but these rides are so great I'm not sure I'm being ironic anymore." That was our Wednesday night -- and then we drove back home.

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For the day itself, we had planned to grill salmon and make mashed potatoes. And that was supposed to be it. But instead, someone asked whether I would make my sister-in-law's Korean spinach, and I started pulling out cookbooks, including some new issues of Cook's Illustrated.

After all, we needed something green. Instead of Korean spinach, I found a recipe for a portobello mushroom and leek crostada (to which I added piave on top instead of gruyere), and a great butter lettuce salad with radishes, toasted walnuts, and a delicious yogurt-dijon-shallot dressing. And as long as the wood stove was going, we threw on some apples and made fresh applesauce. 

All of a sudden our "un-Thanksgiving" turned into quite a feast. Steve had to grill the salmon in the dark and cold, but that was half of the fun. It was delicious.

This issue was too tempting!

And tomorrow we have Thanksgiving do-over -- a tradition with some of our Ohio friends who spend the holiday with family, but want more leftovers than that. I'll be making my mom's crescent rolls and her country apple-cranberry sauce, plus my own special tradition. Years ago I decided that it isn't really a holiday without chocolate, so I make something every year -- flourless chocolate cake, chocolate biscotti, or in this case, milk chocolate cheesecake.

I can still see my husband's cousin in our pantry many years ago, chowing down on the chocolate cookies I was using for the crust for my first ever Thanksgiving chocolate cheesecake. And the pies coming down the stairs and in the front door another time to make the dessert table groan -- pumpkin pies, sweet potato pies, apple pies, flourless chocolate cake, and the cranberry walnut cake my daughter made that year, tempted herself by the cover of Better Homes and Gardens. 

I sure do love this holiday.