small holiday meal for two

Oh my, aren’t firsts nice?

Thanksgiving Day last year I was a nervous mess, queasy and excited about the next morning when I’d meet him for our first date.

Now our first Thanksgiving together as a couple has come and gone, calmly, quickly. How things change in a year.

There were calls to family afar, chatting with those we love about the day’s festivities. There was wood smoke wafting in from the patio and the smell of various things as we cooked throughout the day, the parade and football humming in the background. And then the feast came forth.

Exactly the right amount of food for us [thanks to a few intense minutes with the calculator], and oh was it all marvelous! What I most looked forward to were the Brussels sprouts. I wait all year for fresh sprouts, and the many different ways you can dress them up for the holidays. Even more exciting this year because I would be trying them out on he who swore [note past tense] he dislikes the tiny crucifer. This would also be the year I give pies a chance.

I’d say it was our best Thanksgiving yet:

the small spread

24 November, Thanksgiving Eve

The holiday season is here! And even though we’ll be celebrating as a duo this year, the first Thanksgiving away from home and our families, Thanksgiving means a table full of wonderful food.

Of course, Thanksgiving also means plenty of other things: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, football, a full day in the kitchen with new and old recipes, opening a bottle of wine, stories of holidays past and those we’re missing, and the excitement of creating new traditions for a new life. But as transplanted Midwesterners in southeast Texas, turkey and pies come before all else. The only adaptation to our new southern home in terms of food will be wood-smoking the breast, and adding a sweet potato buttermilk pie to the dessert lineup.

Today’s main task, aside from making the cranberry sauce

brimming with orange and ginger

papaya upside-down cake

After Thursday’s episode of Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello [and a full recap of the recipes from me to him], we started wishing we were alive in the ’50s. Maybe that was only me, but we did develop a hankering for cake.

Upside-down cake isn’t something about which I’ve ever thought: “That looks fantastic!” If I do come across one, it’s usually in an old-timey cookbook I’m flipping through to chuckle at the abundance of gelatin in recipes [meat aspic?!], placement of odd-colored maraschino cherries everywhere, and the silly titles people gave their recipes. Really a good time — you should give it a try.

To be perfectly honest, real old-fashioned pineapple upside-down cake has only been on my plate once or twice and, not to insult whosoever made those cakes, it’s never left an impression. Michael’s ‘gourmet’ version of pineapple upside-down cake — kicked up with chunks of mango and toasted macadamia nuts, cooked in individual ramekins — set my mind a-wandering… and apparently his, too, because as I was explaining the recipe, he asked if we could use papaya [we're still sitting on about three pounds].

So no, that’s not a typo up there. We baked a…

papaya upside-down cake!

two hundred [recipe: Seeduction Bread]

I was tweaking and cleaning up the blog yesterday and realized that Sunday’s tartine post was my 200th blog post! For someone who’s shy and not particularly loquacious, it’s amazing I’ve had this much to say. Although when the topic of food comes about, I usually have no trouble finding my words.

I wanted to make something special to honor the feat. Something I crave regularly but cannot get here. Something I tucked behind everything else in my recipe folder when we started dating, because he’s not into baked goods/breads with nuts or crunchy things inside.

Whole Foods’ Seeduction Bread. A hearty, nutty, seedy whole grain bread filled with bulgur, poppy seeds, pepitas and sunflower seeds. Perfect for eating plain, toasted, slathered with butter, peanut butter or jam, torn off in hunks and dipped in hummus, served alongside salad or soup, as sandwich bread…

egg-in-a-hole

bloggers unite: Fight for Preemies

Having a child should be a joyous occasion for a woman and her family, just as every child should begin life healthy. However, that’s not always the case. Every year, 20 million babies are born too soon, too small and very sick ― half a million of them in the United States. November is Prematurity Awareness Month through the March of Dimes. November 17 is dedicated to helping build awareness of the growing problem of premature birth, as well as raising funds to support the Fight for Preemies.

Premature birth [born before 37 completed weeks of gestation] is the leading cause of infant mortality during the first month of life, killing one in eight babies born in the United States. Sadly, many of the infants who survive — roughly 100,000 each year — often face the challenges associated with lasting disabilities such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation and learning problems, chronic lung disease, and vision and hearing problems; making half of all neurological disabilities in children related to premature birth. Helping mothers and their babies reach term can help reduce the nation’s infant mortality rate while providing each baby with a better chance for a healthy start in life.

I am very passionate about healthy pregnancies and the prevention of premature birth, and hope to use my position as a Registered Dietitian [and place in the blogosphere] to help promote this cause much more in the future — starting today. If you would like to help support the MOD and their Fight for Preemies, you can make a donation or create a band in honor of your own premature baby or with someone else in mind. If you’re unable to donate, please keep these babies and families in your thoughts. Thanks for your help!