By: Evyn Block

Thanksgiving is upon us- and I get the sense that everyone in our office is either planning what to cook, or dreaming about what they will be eating on the day. So much of what we identify with Thanksgiving revolves around the food that we eat. But of course it’s also hearing the stories of who first came up with a certain recipe, which dishes have been passed down, and which ones have been reinvented. And everyone picking their personal favorite. It’s the stories behind the food that make it all so special.

Thanksgiving is, at root, a secular holiday. Its all about families, and how you spend the day says a lot about your own. For me, the holiday has always been an homage to my father’s German family. Growing up, we would bundle into an old 1970’s Volkswagon Beetle and drive from urban Chicago out to our grandparents’ house in rural Wisconsin. In order to maximize our anticipation and appreciation of the mammoth meal to come, our father would strictly prohibit any food consumption for the entire day...which led to a very long car ride through hours of endless cornfields.

There were always five pies—- two apple, two pumpkin, one lemon meringue—still cooling when we arrived. The sight of the pies, and our lovely grandmother stepping out to the driveway to greet us, made the wait seem suddenly worthwhile. The rest was pretty traditional: the men drank PBR and Schlitz watching football, the women cooked or helped set the table. The kids snuck whatever pre-meal scraps they could find.

The food on the table reflected who our grandparents were, and who they wanted to be—a hybrid of German family traditions and kitschy 1950’s and 60’s Americana. Some things kept from their European past along with those borrowed from the Joneses next door. The German touches were intense dishes like spinach salad with hot vinegar bacon dressing, made with lots of bacon fat drippings, sugar-- and so much vinegar your eyes watered. We loved it. We had pickled vegetables and slaws, we had raw spring onions and radishes, dipped in crystal salt wells and eaten raw. Stuffing wasn’t called stuffing, it was called “Dressing”, and it was good.

After my grandmother passed away, the baton (or gravy ladle) passed to my sister, who had to make some tough decisions- what traditions stayed, which ones were going to be phased out. And the result was uniformly popular. The stars, (the turkey, dressing, potatoes and homemade gravy, the spinach salad and full range of pies) all stayed in the picture. The 1950’s dishes, (the green bean casserole with canned French onion, tuna salad casserole with mayo and canned peas, the mini marshmallow laden jello desserts) were all were nixed. Goodbye, bad 50’s food, we salute you. You will not be missed. And there are new favorites, like my mother’s sweet potatoes with caramelized apples and homemade caramel.

I’ve attached some of our favorite family recipes here, and a few photos. Families grow, families get smaller, locations change, but we can always keep a bit of the past that we hold dear through our dishes. It’s our living memory.

Gran's Spinach Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing:

5 slices of bacon cut up

3 Tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 Tablespoons lemon juice

3 teaspoons sugar

1/2 teaspoons salt

dash of pepper

1/2 cup sliced green onion

2 hard cooked eggs - chopped

1 10oz. pkg. torn fresh spinach

Fry bacon until crisp. Remove bacon from pan. Leave 2 Tbsp. bacon drippings in the pan. Add vinegar, lemon juice, sugar, salt and pepper. Cook about 1 minute. Pour over spinach in a large bowl. Add bacon, onions, and egg. Mix until well coated.

Makes 6 servings.

Gran's "Poultry Dressing" i.e., "stuffing"

3 bags of unseasoned bread cubes (Pepperidge Farm)

3  cups chopped celery

2 large onions chopped

1 lb. seasoned bulk pork sausage (Jones)

3 heaping teaspoons poultry seasoning

3-4 heaping teaspoons salt

Boil neck and gizzards to make broth (2 cups)

Saute onion in 4-5 Tbsp. of butter

Moisten the bread cubes with broth using your hands (use a big bowl, its messy!)

Add all the other ingredients (including the raw bulk pork sausage) and mix well with your hands. (it gets even messier).

When the stuffing is cooking (325-350 for about an hour) the bulk pork sausage cooks as well, and the pork fat gets soaked into the bread cubes and helps to cook the celery.

By Sarah Bender

After graduating from Johns Hopkins University last spring I dove right into the working world, starting at Bullfrog & Baum less than a month after commencement.  My first day was a whirlwind – it seemed that in the blink of an eye, I had gone from being a carefree college student to a real, official adult!  On that initial day, I joined the ranks of Team Pink, the consumer goods team here at B&B, and was assigned to my very first account, Garrett Popcorn Shops. 

Since that day, I’ve held Garrett Popcorn in high esteem.  I feel like I’m always talking about it – telling friends about it, bringing samples home to my roommates, and even taking my whole family to one of Garrett’s stores on a recent trip to Chicago and making them stand in line for 45 minutes just so they could have a taste of the delicious, and somewhat sacred CaramelCrisp.  Crafted according to a three-generation secret family recipe, Garrett’s CaramelCrisp is perfectly sweet and savory.  Every batch is air popped then hand-stirred in copper kettles for even coverage – so all the good stuff is on each and every piece.

This weekend, I am planning on hosting an early Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment for a large group of friends.  And, thanks to a recipe from our good friend, Chef Brian Baranski, at Garrett Popcorn, I plan on making CaramelCrisp Sweet Potato Pie – and I’m positive it’s going to be a hit!

Garrett’s CaramelCrisp Sweet Potato Pie
6 sweet potatoes
5 Tbsp. butter
½ c. brown sugar
3 cups Garrett CaramelCrisp
½ tsp. Kosher Salt
5-6 grinds of fresh black pepper

Peel and wash sweet potatoes. Cut into ½-inch slices. Season with kosher salt, fresh black pepper; toss together with brown sugar.  Place mixture in a pie tin or casserole dish. Bake in 375 degree oven for 45-60 minutes or until fork tender. Remove from oven and set aside. Cut butter in half, and place evenly on top of baked sweet potatoes.  Then cover with Garrett's CaramelCrisp, toss together while slightly mashing at the same time.  Enjoy! 

What I’m:

Eating CaramelCrisp with Team Pink

Watching Real Housewives of Atlanta on Bravo

Reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Listening to Rihanna

By Rachel Baumgartner

Since graduating from the Institute of Culinary Education in 2005 in the Pastry and Baking Arts program, I consider myself somewhat a connoisseur of all things sweet.  Fortunately for me, I live in a city where there’s a bakery on every corner, and you can often find me roaming through the streets of NYC, hunting for the next best confection. 

I’ve always liked sweets, but these days I can’t get enough of pastries.  Though these freshly baked dough-based treats have not been good for my waistline, they do bring a smile to my face every time I bit into something sugary and yummy.    

Some of my beloved places to visit in my neighborhood of Brooklyn are:  One Girl Cookies, Sweet Melissa, and Trois Pommes.  New York also has a few favorites: Magnolia Bakery, Billy's Bakery and The Doughnut Planet.  I have also been known to take a trip up to the Bronx for a sweet treat at De Lillo’s.

As you might imagine, baking at home is one of my favorite pastimes – the aroma of a freshly baked treat wafting by, there’s nothing better.  But if you don’t care to spend your days slaving away over a hot stove, like I do, you can found almost anything your desire at your local pâtisserie. 

Since Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I thought I’d share with you my specialty dessert, Pumpkin Cheesecake, a Cooking Light recipe. 

Ingredients

Crust:

8 oz reduced-fat vanilla wafers

1 Tbsp butter or stick margarine, melted

Cooking spray

Filling:

3 (8 oz) blocks fat-free cream cheese, softened

2 (8 oz) blocks 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

3 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp salt

Dash of allspice

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 large eggs

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°.

To prepare crust, place wafers in a food processor; pulse 2 to 3 times or until finely ground. Add butter; pulse 10 times or until mixture resembles coarse meal. Firmly press mixture into bottom of a 9-inch springform pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes; cool on a wire rack.

Reduce oven temperature to 325°.

To prepare filling, beat cheeses with a mixer at high speed until smooth. Add the granulated sugar and next eight ingredients (granulated sugar through vanilla), beating well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add pumpkin; beat well.

Pour cheese mixture into prepared crust; bake at 325° for 1 1/2 hours or until almost set. Cheesecake is done when the center barely moves when pan is touched.  Remove cheesecake from oven; run a knife around outside edge. Cool to room temperature; cover and chill at least eight hours.

What I’m:

Reading                  The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Watching                Trueblood

Listening to             Pandora – I mix it up everyday.

Eating                    Leftover Halloween candy 

Drinking                  Ice Tea

by Jennifer Baum

This blog entry was due two days ago.  I missed my deadline. I know and I apologize.

As I sat at my computer on Tuesday night, with every intention to get my submission to our whip-cracking blog master by Wednesday morning, I was sidelined - as much of the country was - by the election returns.

And then, on Tuesday November 4, 2008, the world as we know it was forever changed. 

It got me thinking about other life-changing events in my lifetime.  The day I met my husband, my wedding, the birth of my son, September 11, 2001.  Each event - and there are many others - had an indelible affect on my soul - each in a very different way, but powerfully nonetheless.

So I thought I would present a very short list of food-related life-altering experiences that don't carry nearly the weight of those events mentioned above but that somehow changed my outlook, even if only a small bit: 

1.  The candy cotton dessert at The Four Seasons Restaurant.  I will never forget the first time I watched as the confection was ushered through the dining room to my table - glittery candied ginger nestled in the cotton candy cloud and a scoop of vanilla ice cream hidden beneath.  I was 18 years old, dressed up and on a very grown up date.  Fifteen years later I would marry the son of the creator of this iconic restaurant.  Go figure...

2. The filet mignon Roquefort at Sparks.  I only dined at Sparks once, a very long time ago, for my father's birthday.  It was one of those magical nights when everyone in my family was getting along, engaged in conversation, and really happy.  I ordered the filet at my dad's suggestion as he had eaten there often.  It wasn't really about the steak. After all, I'd had filet mignon before and always loved blue cheeses. But there was something about that meal that I have never forgotten and my mind wanders back to that table often and I smile. 

3.  Heirloom tomatoes at Gramercy Tavern.  I'm sure it wasn't the first time I had tasted heirlooms but it was definitely the first time I became aware of heirlooms. I was dining with my brothers and father and noticed heirloom tomatoes on the list of daily specials. I couldn't control my glee when I cheerfully announced that I would order the tomatoes. My non-food savvy brothers thought the idea of heirloom anything food related must have been nothing more than a joke and continued to mock my excitement for the dish throughout the meal. I was not deterred. I have been a fan of heirlooms ever since. And I am pleased to say that while they are not following the Slow Food movement, my brothers are at least more aware of the importance of quality ingredients.

4. The popovers at BLT Steak; the chicken salad at Cookshop; the greek salad at Anthos; the cioppino at Bar Americain; the edamame dumplings at Buddakan; the pasta with goat ragu at Convivio; the rib eye with pork lardon at Alto.  I could go on forever. These are the dishes at some of our restaurants that have what I call "cravability." They are the dishes that somehow leave an indelible mark in a person's brain that makes them have to return again and again.  Life-altering, I suppose.

So, let us celebrate the future but let us not forget the past. Memory is a very powerful thing and while there are good and bad past experiences, let's focus on the good... and the food.

What I'm:

Reading        Circling My Mother, Mary Gordon

Listening To  In My Tribe, 10,000 Maniacs

                   (I found the CD in my basement and can't turn it off)

Watching      Mad Men

Drinking        Water (I'm trying...)