Thanks

My dad and I got to talking yesterday afternoon about how Thanksgiving leftovers are his favorite kind of leftovers. I agree with him that Thanksgiving gives us some terrific leftovers: mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pies, some turkey.

Dad says that he likes Thanksgiving leftovers the best because he always knows what foods to expect. Christmas dishes vary every year at our family table, with the exception of the dependable jalapeno creamed spinach. At Thanksgiving, you can count on certain family staples to be lined up on the table runner like a thread connecting every Thanksgiving that came before, and every Thanksgiving to follow.

I love Thanksgiving, too, and I have some interesting memories of Turkey Days past. Take the one with the helicopter ride. It happened on my grandmother's farm, when our friends Frank and Ruth, who owned a helicopter called Black Thunder and did the traffic for the local radio stations, landed the chopper in the side pasture. They took us for rides over the barley fields and stock tanks of Alvarado, Texas, buzzing Grammy's corrugated metal barn a time or two. I remember my stomach jumping as the helicopter nosed downward, autumn-yellow fields skating by under my little Reeboks.

A doctor from Beijing was visiting my dad's hospital that year, so he'd asked her to join us to celebrate Thanksgiving. An enthusiast for American customs, she probably will be disappointed if she has Thanksgiving anywhere else, now that she has had a helicopter ride over Texas with us.

Most of my early Thanksgivings were held out on Grammy's farm and to this day, even here in warm, humid South Florida, my mind associates Thanksgiving with cold fronts, straw bales, and Grammy's green Depression glass pitchers of iced tea. One of my earliest memories is the Thanksgiving my dad harnessed Grammy's quarterhorse, Lacy, to an ancient wooden wagon that Grammy housed in her garage. Lacy towed us around the house a few times, ears cocked back toward our boisterous group in the wagon as if to say, "I'm only putting up with this foolishness for the carrots."

A time came when I was no longer home to have Thanksgiving on Grammy's farm. I spent my junior year of college in London, studying English literature. Who knew how darn difficult it could be to find a whole turkey there in late November? My sister visited me on her Thanksgiving break from school and after combing the Sainsbury's of Westminster, we adjusted our ambitions and ultimately settled for chicken, which we knew that we were capable of baking. The two of us prepared a meal with a bunch of my British, Scottish, and American friends in the dormitory's tiny second-floor kitchen, within earshot of the Abbey's bells.

Yesterday, Steve and I drove to his parents' house, just as we have done since we were first married. I balanced my mother's cranberry-raspberry tart in my lap, and I smiled, knowing that two thousand miles away, my mother and my sister had prepared the same dishes. Merri, Steve's mother, roasted a perfect bird and as we sat down at the loaded table, we clasped hands with the people we love and said a few words of thanks, each of us welcoming to the circle those who could not be with us, each of us thinking of many Thanksgivings past.

Charlie Trotter's Shaved Fennel Apple Salad
From this recipe available at Epicurious.com (originally published in Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home)

Need something light and fresh to go with your leftover mashed tubers and creamed whatnots? This salad can help you with that.

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup canola oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and halved
2 bulbs fennel, thinly sliced (if you own a mandolin, this is a good time to use it)

To prepare the vinaigrette: Whisk together the lemon juice, chopped tarragon, and olive and canola oils in a small bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper.

To prepare the salad: Cut the apple into thin slices and place in a medium bowl with the fennel. Toss with the vinaigrette and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves: 8 appetizer portions

Do-Over

Ever had a recipe make it into your "almost but not quite" file?

This happened to me a few weeks ago. I found a Melissa Clark recipe that sounded great on paper, but didn't quite happen in the pan. Kind of like a job applicant with a great resume but no personality.

Take the sauce--that was great on paper and in execution. Sweet fennel, onions, and briny Calamata olives simmered in red wine and freshly squeezed orange juice, with some fragrant chopped sage tossed in at the last minute. Oh my word, is that good stuff.

But the overall dish?

Alas, it saddened me in the end. The problem was the meat. Melissa used a cut of London broil, which is notoriously tough unless it is marinated for hours in something highly acidic. Since the recipe did not call for a long marinade, no such marinade occurred.

And that's why I was disappointed on the first run. The sauce was lovely, but the meat was tough and tasteless and dense. I mean airline seat cushion dense.

I kept thinking about the sauce in the days that followed. It really is something. And it deserves a better cut of meat.


That's why I had a do-over this week. I picked up a cut of flank steak, which is economical but tender, and got to work.


And found satisfaction, at last.

Flank Steak with Red Wine, Fennel, and Olives
Adapted from this Melissa Clark recipe in Food & Wine

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
One 3/4-pound piece of flank steak
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 small fennel bulb —halved, cored and very thinly sliced crosswise
2 tablespoons pitted Calamata olives, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup red wine (I used a 2004 Heras Cordon Rioja)
1/2 cup water
The juice from one orange
1 teaspoon finely chopped sage, plus sage leaves for garnish

In a large, deep skillet, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Season the meat with salt and pepper, add to the skillet and brown over moderate heat on both sides, about 4 minutes; transfer to a plate and cover tightly with foil.

Add the onion, fennel, olives and garlic to the skillet and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until very tender, about 8 minutes. Add the wine, water, orange juice and chopped sage and bring to a simmer. Cook over moderate heat for 5 minutes.

Nestle the flank steak into the skillet. Cover and cook the meat over moderately low heat until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat registers 145° for medium rare, about 10 minutes. Transfer the meat to a cutting board and cover loosely with foil; let stand for 3 minutes.

Divide the flank steak into two portions and serve covered with the onion and fennel mixture and the pan juices. Garnish with the sage leaves and serve immediately.