Thanksgiving Photo Challenge: Announcing the Winner!
Stuff
Some of you may have counted up the votes on your own, but now the "official" results are in! The winner of the Thanksgiving Photo Challenge -- and a gorgeous food52 tote bag, courtesy of LL Bean (pictured below)-- is...
Congratulations to her, and thanks to all who shared their Thanksgiving photos and memories with us!
After looking through all of the great entries for the Thanksgiving Slide Show Contest, we simply couldn't narrow the submissions to three. So, we're giving you five instead! Have a look through the photos -- which are wonderfully mouthwatering and often moving -- and vote for the slideshow you think should win a food52 tote by writing your choice in the comments section below. You have until next Thursday, 12/10 at noon EST, when we'll tally up the votes and then announce the winner the following morning.
Good luck to all of the contenders!
Thanksgiving Slide Show - antoniajames
Our boys are both at East Coast schools, with short Thanksgiving breaks. We live in California. We always take a good long hike with the boys on Thanksgiving day, starting at Muir Woods, hiking or running over Mt. Tam, and then running down to Stinson Beach. Then we drive home and eat Thanksgiving dinner somewhat on the late side. Instead of eating Thanksgiving alone at home this year, we decided to take a hike somewhere we'd never been before, and to take our turkey dinner with us. Everything but the bread and the dressing I made before Thanksgiving day.
It's 11 AM on Thursday. Here is our Thanksgiving repast, packed up and ready to go. I am thankful that the boys are with their grandparents and cousins and that we are the ones stranded on one of our favorite family holidays.
I am thankful that my wonderful butcher could sell to me half a turkey breast, and that cooking it in the clay pot turned out so well. I brined it, then cooked it Wednesday night with a few strips of cooked bacon over the skin of the turkey, carrots, celery and onion around it, and a "Scarborough Faire" bouquet garni (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme) beneath it. I separately roasted a turkey neck to use in gravy.
After steaming these "Brusslies," as we call them, I tossed them with bacon, a dash of my own champagne vinegar, and a spoonful of good maple syrup. I am so thankful for this gorgeous, functional heavy skillet given to me by the boys one year when they were very little.
I am particularly thankful for the ever-growing library of interesting and imaginative recipes at food52. I adapted MrsWheelbarrow's cornbread dressing recipe for this.
Here are a few other items, which I'm thankful to have made last month. They are: Onion Relish (J. Choate recipe, adapted); and Gingered Cranberry Conserve and Pear and Apple Relish, both adapted from Deborah Madison recipes.
This is where we hiked - an "Open Space Preserve" on the San Francisco Peninsula. We were thankful for a splendid day, and this gorgeous place within a one-hour drive of our home.
A shy coyote crossed the trail ahead of us. We were thankful that it stopped long enough for us to turn the camera on to take this picture.
We initially planned to drive down to the coast after our hike, to eat our dinner overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We were thankful that we could tell during our hike that the fog had rolled in. The beach would be overcast and windy, so we decided to stay up here in the hills.
There were no tables at the summit, but these two benches served us well. We were thankful to be somewhat more protected from the wind. This place was more peaceful than the picnic table area below.
Here's our dinner! The menu items not mentioned elsewhere were: baked sweet potatoes with just a touch of freshly churned butter and a dash of finishing salt; braised fennel in champagne citrus vinaigrette with fines herbes; and Mrs. Rombauer's icebox potato rolls recipe (Joy of Cooking, 1943 edition) made into a small loaf; and dark chocolate truffles made with dried Montmorency cherries and kirsh. Pie and ice cream awaited us at home. We were thankful to be ravenous from our hike, and to be surrounded by such beauty.
Thanksgiving Slide Show - csheago
The Barn
Thanksgiving Slide Show - eatboutique
Woke to a foggy Thanksgiving morning, a great misty view from our back porch.
Filled old mason jars with tea lights... so folks made it through the fog to the house. :)
Smoked two Vermont heritage birds in our old rickety smoker, fragrant smoke wafting across the entire block.
Basted the smoked bird in olive oil and... more olive oil.
Baked 4 no-knead loaves crusted in corn meal especially for Thanksgiving.
Chopped hazelnuts were sprinkled all over my caramelized brussels sprout & sweet-potato ravioli salad.
Sparsely-set long tables for our dear friends and family, topped with a homegrown-centerpiece made from recycled wine corks, wire, old gnarled wood & dried hydrangea from the garden.
Sparsely-set table setting, up close.
Warmed tomato pie from a Philadelphia-based cousin made for a quick appetizer as folks arrived.
Ruby, our sweet dog, took a break beside our huge photo of the Rockefeller Christmas tree, an ode to things to come.
Thanksgiving Slide Show - GerriH
The Irony Chef of this house. The acorn squash was stuck on Torkil's favorite knife, my bad.
The squash had beautiful color just sliced.
Carrots, potatoes, and celeriac roasting with thyme and winter savory from the fire escape.
The acorn squash roasting with garlic in the toaster oven.
Sage from the fire escape about to be chopped and going into the dressing.
My grandmother's dressing; corn bread and toast dressing with lots of celery, onion, and sage.
Squeezing the juice out of the vegetable scraps and herbs that we had cooked down to make stock for the vegetarian gravy.
Making roux for the vegetarian gravy.
We took the train from Brooklyn to the East Village with our sides to share a meal and a great evening with our friends. People getting together.
The buffet table is starting to take form.
Thanksgiving Slide Show - jestei
Our husbands Ed Wyatt and John Busby grew up together in Houston, and our families make a point of going away together every few years. In April 2001, we rented a cabin in Yosemite and loved it. We decided this Thanksgiving we'd return to that same cabin in Wawona: Jennifer and Ed and their kids, Hannah, 10 and Sadie, 6; John and Debbie and their 15-year-old daughter Kendall; and ten bags of groceries dragged up 300 miles from Los Angeles to celebrate with the bears.
It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without Martha Stewart to misguide us on pie crust, and everyone pitches in.
While pie crusts cooled and after each family stuffing was completed, we took hikes in Yosemite village, or went star gazing.
Here is chipotle-chili pumpkin pie set into something resembling a quiche. (It was, however, fantastic. Thanks, Martha.)
You have to improvise in a cabin kitchen. The peeler available to us was a double abomination – rudimentary and dull. No rolling pin in the house, but an empty Pinot Noir bottle -- of which we seemed to have plenty -- did just fine.
We salute you, Gourmet, six feet under though you may be, with these divine poppy seed yeast rolls.
Zesting a Meyer lemon from the Busbys' backyard tree, while potatoes waiting to meet mascarpone cheese and chives cooked in a roasting pan. (Improvise! Smile gamely!)
Green beans per food52, as were The Most Comforting Puree of Sweet Potatoes from Cordelia, which involved amaretti cookies, and koshercamembert’s Rosh Hashanah apple cake, because it is delicious and did not require a pie plate.
The table was set with the basics, mountain-rental mismatched silverware and dishes, but the pine trees were better than any centerpiece.
John cuts into John Muir, our turkey named after the famous Yosemite-loving naturalist, as succulent as any we’ve ever made in the city.