Home Cooking

With all the restaurants and food marathons I often neglect to write about home cooking. Two of the best home-cooked meals I've had this year occurred over Thanksgiving weekend.
First was Thanksgiving part one (of what would be three Thanksgiving meals). The first was a daytime affair featuring a brilliant young chef trying a challenging menu of items:
-Chestnut Soup (roasted chestnuts pureed with shitake mushrooms, lard and cognac). I don't have a good picture, but it wouldn't have done it justice anyway. The pancetta reduction might be cheating but it adds a level of subtle flavor that elevates the soup exponentially.
-Red Pepper Relish with Danish Bleu Cheese
-Toasted Smoked Chipotle Garbanzo Beans
-Potato Chips and dairy free onion dip
-Brined turkey with seasoned french bread stuffing and pan dripping gravy-Butter Leaf Lettuce with beets and dijon vinagrette-Fresh pureed sweet potatoes with vanilla and marshmallow topping
-Mashed potatoes with scallions-Sun dried tomato and garlic cornbread muffins
-Steamed white corn
-Spicy Dill Pickles-Deviled Eggs-Blueberry Cranberry relish with essence of orange
-Sourdough baguette
-Turkey-shaped cream puffs
That was just the first Thanksgiving meal of the day. The later meal was much more traditional and not nearly as tasty.
A few days later I was treated to a wonderful meal of home cooked shabu shabu:
It keeps the theme of the big family meal in tact, but loses the copious amounts of butter, fat, cream and tryptophan made famous by Thanksgiving.
The steam clouded the lense, but you can see the beef, vegetables, tofu and shrimp.
Top it off with an In-n-Out double double and chocolate shake and you have a happy holiday weekend.