Thanksgiving

My strongest memories of Thanksgiving are the mingling smells of chopped parsley, melted butter, and chicken broth going into the stuffing, and the sounds of cheering and yelling as we all watched the Army-Navy football game. At Bayona we always serve two different stuffings with our roast turkey. One is my mom’s simple bread stuffing, and the other is loaded with local flavors like shrimp (or crayfish) and andouille. I still like my mom’s the best. I call for both stuffings to be baked in casseroles, but you can also follow your favorite method for baking them inside a bird.

This is a crisp and pleasing salad that gives you a chance to show off the subtle, clean-tasting apples you can find in the fall and winter, such as Macoun, Braeburn, or Gala (though it’s great with tart Granny Smith apples any time of year). It gets a mellow richness from Comté, a high-quality Swiss-style cheese that’s made in France, and the nuttiness of the cheese is echoed by the hazelnuts. (Walnuts would be a fine substitute, however.) I frequently use apple cider for the basis of sauces and dressings, because it’s lightly fruity but still fairly neutral, so it blends well with lots of different things. When cooked down or reduced, cider gets almost syrupy, which gives body as well as flavor to the dressing.

These lend a spicy bite to just about any green salad, particularly Crispy Smoked Quail Salad with Bourbon-Molasses Dressing (p. 127). But they’re also a delicious snack to serve with any of the killer cocktails in the last chapter.

The topping for this cake is simple: cranberries are placed over sugar and spices at the bottom of the pan. As the cake bakes, the sugar caramelizes, forming a syrup. When you invert the pan, the syrup soaks into the cake, creating a festive dessert.

The Kentucky sandwich. Built on a base of savory French toast, this open-faced sandwich needs no doubling up. Thick slices of turkey breast and juicy tomatoes are topped with a decadent cheese sauce, broiled until bubbly and golden brown, then crowned with crisp slices of bacon. It’s no surprise that this dish, named for its birthplace at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, has become Kentucky Derby lore.

When we opened Ko, we did so with a deep-fried apple pie. It resonated so much with people that we decided to use the apple pie as inspiration for a cake. We already had the crumb-into-ganache-into-frosting down and we loved the pie crumb we had developed for a few Noodle Bar and Ko desserts seasons before. This cake will make you seem like a genius, though all you are doing is layering apple pie fixins between layers of slightly nutty (with brown butter) cake. Leftovers make especially delicious impromptu cake truffles (see page 122).

My grandmother Irene Paul taught me to make fried pies years ago. She made the pastry dough from scratch in the early days, but later in life she began to take advantage of modern conveniences. So here’s the recipe for Grandmother’s updated but old-fashioned fried pies.

Lisa, our head chef and night kitchen manager, whips these pies up fresh daily for our guests in the restaurant. They go great with our homemade vanilla ice cream.

Soft, slightly sweet rolls are an American dinnertime tradition, but they certainly have their rightful place at the brunch table, too. From this basic recipe, you can shape many rolls, including round rolls, cloverleaf rolls, and twists.

January 2007. It is not especially cold, but has been raining nonstop for two days. Even the short dash from bus to front door leaves me soaked through and in need of some sort of carbohydrate and fat. Butter and beef dripping seem suddenly more appropriate than olive oil. Even more so the little bowl of duck fat I saved from last Sunday’s roast. Perhaps it was the week before. No matter, it keeps for months. It is said that people used to rub this snow-white fat on their chest to ward off a cold. I prefer to take my duck dripping internally, and set about a simple layered potato dish with thyme and garlic. The addition of the pumpkin was a spur-of-the-moment thing. It works well, adding a sweet nuttiness to the recipe. I like it on its own too, with a sharp and vinegary green salad at its side. It is also a good side dish for meat of some sort and wonderful with cuts from yesterday’s roast, just the thing for a cold roast chicken or duck leg.