We still had two kinds of potatoes

I started the day reading an email from a friend wishing me a Thanksgiving “of countless blessings.” An hour later my sister and I hit the road for six miles of below-freezing running. Though it took a good hour to regain feeling from frozen head to frozen toe, I couldn’t help but feel I’d have no trouble fulfilling my friend’s wishes; the blessings most definitely are countless.

Part of that is the opportunity to stay in the kitchen for hours, cooking and baking. I generally do not consider myself kitchen-y. I am a decent cook and the easier the recipe, the more I like it. I like simplicity and I blame that partly on feeling like I’ve got very little time and partly on being lazy. But nothing, to me, feels more like the holidays are coming than when I’m in stocking feet and the apron I wear maybe twice a year, waiting for onions to reach that just-right level of transparency.

But let’s back up a little. As you might remember, there was a good chance that I could have celebrated an all-potato Thanksgiving this year. As great as that sounds, as easy as it would be for me to eat mashed and scalloped and au-gratin (oh my!) next to my turkey, there are just too many things out there I’ve been waiting to try. And with the time to do it, I could not let the chance pass.

About a month ago, Miss Anne made Roasted Cauliflower from this recipe. And while it looked great and sounded great, I do a) not consider myself a cauliflower fan and b) am intimidated by nearly all things Gourmet. No, I don’t have a good reason for this, I just am. But as usual, Anne was right because once I read this recipe I was like I can do this. With my eyes closed. So I put it in the file for Thanksgiving, because there is no one better than family on which to experiment. Then I got to thinking, this is my family. These people, they eat; and they like variety and well, I have never been very good at following recipes anyway.

So, in addition to the cauliflower, which I’d forgotten was so perfect in it’s own right, I decided to add carrots. As I was chopping the carrots, I glanced over and saw the bottle of tarragon vinegar poking out of the cupboard. This is where I get dangerous. Because what to do with the vinegar? There had to be something. And a red onion then proceeded to save the day. I sautéed the sliced red onion in tarragon vinegar and after my eyes stopped watering for all the “aroma” in the air I added them to the chopped carrots and cauliflower, already coated in olive oil, and baked it all in one big dish of what-the-heck-it’ll-be-fine.

Surprisingly, or not, it did turn out fine. The onions and vinegar, of course, nearly dominated the flavor but not so much that you forget the crispness of the fresh vegetables. And if that’s not enough to convince you, I’ll also mention that an eleven-year-old kid told me “these are the best vegetables I’ve ever had.” If you have ever known an eleven-year-old or if you remember being one yourself, you realize just how miraculous that is. Him liking vegetables is sort like a cat liking a bath.

After the seemingly successful vegetable roasting, I rose a little higher on my kitchen horse and moved on to the Pumpkin Bread Pudding. I don’t know about y’all, but this recipe has been haunting me left, right and center for the last couple months. Everyone and their brother (and Anne) has been talking about it. If the Internet had a barber shop, this recipe would be the latest. And for good reason(s). First and foremost, it is easy. We know how I like that. Beyond slicing (chopping?) the bread into one-inch cubes, there is just nothing tedious or difficult about this.

Truth be told, I likely fell in love with this recipe the first time I saw it. People were all “this is fabulous” and “sooooo easy.” As these claims kept showing up on my screen, I also noticed everyone was substituting here and modifying there like it was no big deal. If anything says simple to me it’s a recipe that you can change without serious consequence. And I did, with the help of Cruzan dark (just two-ish tablespoons). I know how surprising that is.

Now, I’m not altogether sure how this was supposed to look in the end. Some areas became a little crispy but overall it was just brown and pretty. That’s good, right? Apparently I’ve been very under-exposed to bread pudding my whole life. As popular as it may be, that is just not the case here in the West. East? Yes. South? Yes. But out here, I think we’ve just been missing it. Either that or people are keeping it terribly quiet which, in the case of this particular recipe, makes no sense at all. As of Thanksgiving Day 2007, I am a fan. It was neither soggy nor overwhelmingly sweet, which I adore in a dessert. I like to eat something that has some dimension of flavors and doesn’t just give the impression of being your sugar bowl, dressed up and baked a little. This fit the bill perfectly and when Grandma suggested some vanilla ice cream on the side, I couldn’t help but feel my search for a perfect holiday dessert was over.

So Thanksgiving, from my side and the side with all the potatoes, turned out great. It was warm and well-received and felt just as it should. While I will always wish I had more time to cook, at least the day gave me another dose of confidence that the thought isn’t too ridiculous. I would have liked to have done more, but there was also all that parade and football watching to do. It might also be good if I had some better kitchen help.