Thanks and Giving

"Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants."

(Kevin James)

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday. Like last year, today I'm posting my family's Turkey Day menu as I wear stretchy sweatpants. Unlike last year, yesterday was my first Thanksgiving with my husband -- and we're happy that my brother-in-law Daniel joined us as well -- and the first with my almost 3-month-old niece Ellie.

Thanksgiving Dinner Menu

Deviled Eggs

Brie, Gouda, and Manchego Cheeses with Grapes, Quince Paste, and Fig Spread

Olive Oil Torta, Crackers, Marcona Almonds, Caramelized Walnuts, and Olives

Roasted Turkey

Kim Classic Stuffing

Turkey Gravy

Sweet-and-Spicy Cranberry Sauce

 Cauliflower with Mustard-Lemon Butter

Roasted Asparagus

Butternut Squash and Creamed-Spinach Gratin 

Candied Yams with Marshmallows

Macaroni and Cheese
Smooth Mashed Potatoes

Buttermilk Biscuits

Pumpkin Roulade with Ginger Buttercream

2012 Beaujolais Nouveau

South African Sauvignon Blanc

Sparkling Cider

Coffee

Deviled Eggs

To snack on before the big meal, my sister and I made a Gourmet Deviled Eggs recipe from Epicurious that we topped with a generous sprinkling of paprika and sliced cornichons. It's ridiculous -- and a little dangerous -- how many deviled eggs I can repeatedly pop into my mouth!

Brie, Gouda, and Manchego Cheeses with Grapes, Quince Paste, and Fig Spread;

Olive Oil Torta, Crackers, Marcona Almonds, Caramelized Walnuts, and Olives

 

We also had a cheese plate of St. Andre Triple Creme Brie, Gouda Parrano, and Manchego cheeses with red grapes and membrillo, a Spanish quince paste; a plate containing fig spread, Ines Rosales olive oil tortas and Marcona almonds like last Christmas, caramelized walnuts, and various crackers; and a plate of different kinds of olives.

My Father's Dishes

Last year, I was in charge of the whole dinner. This year, my sister and I planned the menu and spent most of the day in the kitchen, and my father more than did his share: he started early to cook the turkey, stuffing, gravy, and candied yams with marshmallows -- all classic Thanksgiving dishes we grew up making and eating in my house -- and didn't exactly pause for photo ops, but these are pictured on my plate at the beginning of this post, and some in last year's post since his stuffing and gravy are simple classics. We had to demand that he make more stuffing since at first he had only made enough to stuff the turkey... Who does that? Stuffing-loving girls will cry foul!

Sweet-and-Spicy Cranberry Sauce

I veered from my go-to-since-2010 Cranberry-Pomegranate Relish with pomegranate and shallot in order to try a new Sweet-and-Spicy version with lime, cayenne, and clove from the November 2012 issue of Everyday Food. I made this the night before to save some time. My sister and I preferred the flavors of my tried-and-true cranberry sauce, but it's fun to try new recipes.

Cauliflower with Mustard-Lemon Butter, Roasted Asparagus, and Butternut Squash and Creamed-Spinach Gratin

For veggies, we made cauliflower, asparagus, butternut squash, and spinach. The recipe for Cauliflower with Mustard-Lemon Butter came from Bon Appétit via Epicurious, and my sister has made it before. The asparagus was simply roasted with olive oil.

My sister's sister-in-law has made the Butternut Squash and Creamed-Spinach Gratin, a Gourmet recipe, before, but I think she must have added more heavy cream, cheese, or butter than the recipe called for, because our definitely looked less "creamed" and tasted more healthy than we had expected -- nothing wrong with that, but note for next time.

 

Macaroni and Cheese, Smooth Mashed Potatoes, and Buttermilk Biscuits

My sister bought a tray of mac and cheese from Whole Foods to heat up, and as if we didn't have enough, for some extra starchiness, she and my father tag-teamed to make the creamy mashed potatoes (pictured on plate in first photo) -- even though he prefers the boxed kind -- and I made the Buttermilk Biscuits, another Bon Appétit via Epicurious recipe I first tried recently when Sam and I had friends over for dinner.

Pumpkin Roulade with Ginger Buttercream

For dessert, I made Ina Garten's Pumpkin Roulade with Ginger Buttercream, moist and pumpkin-y with a creamy mascarpone and crystallized ginger filling. After successfully baking a flourless chocolate Bûche de Noël for our Christmas dinner last year, I felt up to the challenge. My nephew Peter kept poking around the kitchen, asking to help, so I let him put some of the ingredients together and help mix the batter. Those are rosemary sprigs stuck into the roulade to look like trees (my sister's husband's idea).

 

Anyone brave the consumer crowds? It's been a while since I've gone out shopping on Black Friday. I'm enjoying some rest and relaxation today, watching some TV, catching up on my journal, making new meals with leftovers, and planning to put up and decorate our Christmas tree!

Guest Post: Bridal Shower Details

I'm delighted to share a guest post from my amazing friend, bridesmaid, and baker extraordinaire who was instrumental in throwing me a beautiful bridal shower complete with pretty invitations, handmade decorations, delicious favors that guests still rave about, and a paper and ribbon bouquet for the rehearsal. Here, she details the steps she took to make everything come together, with photos she snapped along the way. Thank you, Christine!

"Hearts and flowers, ribbon and lace, the look of love upon her face.

A happy heart that's hard to hide, this woman is soon to be a bride!"

(Author Unknown)

In April, I had the honor -- in addition to her sister and closest friends (Maureen, Leslie, Angela, Robyn, and Vivien) -- of organizing and hosting our dear Sharon's bridal shower. 

We certainly felt a lot of pressure to provide a celebration worthy of such an expert party and event planner. After some discussion, the bridesmaids came to the decision that the theme of her shower would be "Sharon's favorite things," which was largely reflected in the food and desserts. We also tried our very best to keep consistent with her wedding color scheme of berries, cream, champagne, and caviar.

I think all our efforts came together quite nicely. It was a great day to celebrate our friend! :)

Invitation

Given Sharon's love of peonies, we picked the "Perfect Peonies" invitation from Wedding Paper Divas. After lots of back and forth, we finally decided on 'peaches and cream' (lighter pink) over 'pink azalea' (a pinkish-purple) for the print color. There were some tough decisions to make! :) Sneaky little Sharon even tried to find out what we were doing by offering to "help" us. Of course we didn't let her! :P

Decorations

We divided the responsibilities with regards to invitations, food, desserts, and games. I was in charge of decorations. I knew I wanted to include some personal and homemade touches that are so characteristic of the thoughtful cards and gifts that Sharon often gives us.

After searching the internet, I came across 2 websites. One provided instructions on how to make a crepe paper pomander. It isn't comprised of peonies, but it's pretty, floral, and I knew I'd be able to make it fit the color scheme. It would make a great centerpiece. Plus, the supply list was pretty minimal.

I had no idea how many flowers I'd need to cover the ball, so I started out by making 100. Turns out I needed closer to 200! After I glued all the flowers on, I could still see white styrofoam peeking through. So I either rolled some smaller flowers or just tucked some pieces of crepe paper (basically I got lazy, OK? hahaha) in the crevices. At the shower, we placed it atop a trumpet vase.

I came across another website that showed how to make tissue paper peonies. Instead of using floral wire, I used pink thread since I wanted it to blend in. These were so pretty and yet very easy to make. We suspended these with thread on a piece of modern sculpture that was in the party space.

Favors

I was most stressed out about what to do about the favors. I bought a cake pop book a while back, but had never actually tried making them. So of course I left things until the last minute and decided to make them for the first time, right before her shower. Yay! Hahaha.

First, I followed Bakerella's instructions on how to make cake balls. I used Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake mix and cream cheese frosting. The shower was on Saturday, so I baked the cake on Thursday night and refrigerated it, taking into consideration the fact that the cake would need to cool down before I handled it. On Friday, I crumbled the cake by hand according to the instructions. After rolling the cake into ovoid balls, I pushed them through a small flower cookie cutter to shape the base of the cupcake. Then I rounded the top to resemble the top of a cupcake.

Unfortunately, the dipping of cake into candy melts is extremely messy, so I couldn't take many step-by-step pictures, but Bakerella has some good ones here. You dunk the base of the cupcake into the candy first and then push the stick about 3/4-inch into the cake. I used thicker sticks that are intended for cookies, not lollipops. One word of advice is that you should dip the stick in a bit of the candy melt before sticking it into the cake. Once the stick is in place, hold it for a few seconds in the position you want because the candy melt dries and hardens pretty quickly! For garnish, I thought it would be perfect to use red Skittles on top since they have an S (for Sharon), in addition to some sprinkles.

The morning of, I still had to create some labels for the favors. I'm sure there is some easier way to do this, but I ended up creating them on PowerPoint and printing them out on some cream-colored paper that I had. I literally only had one sheet so I had to make sure I got it right. After cutting out the labels, I tied them on using a bit of black ribbon.

To display them, I bought a basket and placed 2 styrofoam sheets (one sheet didn't seem sturdy enough to hold the sticks in the upright position) that I had punctured with the ends of the cake pop sticks. After placing all the cake pops in position, I then covered the styrofoam with pink tissue paper that I shredded in my paper shredder. We had some extra that we placed in a rectangular vase with some tissue paper.

Rehearsal Bouquet

I took all the wrapping paper and ribbons home with me. I created a couple more flowers using some of the tissue paper and the paper tissue peonies that we had used as decorations. I made a base for the bouquet for Sharon to hold using all the ribbons and a technique (barrel stitch) for making bracelets that I learned in elementary school. Sharon truly looked lovely in her flowing dress as she walked down the aisle with her dad and her now-husband at the rehearsal and then at her wedding! I feel lucky that I was able to partake in their special day. <3

To Salem and Back Before the Storm

"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."

(F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsy)

Well there's crisp, and then there's a hybrid superstorm called Hurricane Sandy. Thankfully, we never lost electricity, hot water, or heat, but there were live media crews outside our building today due to large downed trees.

What a haunted Halloween, weather-wise! This time last year we had an unreal "Snowpocalypse" but then the winter season that followed was incredibly mild; I wonder if "Frankenstorm" will mean that we'll be spared for the rest of this fall and winter. Either way, children's trick-or-treating will undoubtedly be affected.

Scary transformation

Sam and I spent the past weekend in Salem, Massachusetts, the self-proclaimed "Halloween capital of the world." I had taken a day trip years ago with a few friends I used to work with when I was a graduate student in Boston. This time, we arrived late Friday night, walked around town all day on Saturday, and drove back in the chilly pre-storm drizzle on Sunday. Please see below for more photos.

On the Road

We stayed at the Red Roof Inn in Saugus, MA. On the way, we stopped at Taco Bell in Old Greenwich, CT and snacked on Butter Lane cupcakes in the rental car -- pumpkin frosting on banana cake and chocolate cake, yum!

Pumpkin-y good cupcakes on the way to the hotel

Exploring Salem

Saturday was truly an idyllic autumn New England day. We drove into Salem and ate breakfast at Brothers Deli & Restaurant. Salem is a quaint, walkable town with many shops, parks, museums, and a waterfront. Of course there are also a lot of attractions related to the witch hysteria and trials of 1692 -- a fascinating true story in American history -- and although I visited a few of them in 2003, we only went to one at the last minute in the evening.

Omelette breakfast, lobster roll, and clam chowder

Candy, snacks, and rides in the park

Seeing long lines at the Salem Witch Museum

Peabody Essex Museum

In the midst of all the creepy/campy museums is an excellent fine art museum called the Peabody Essex Museum, founded in 1799. We visited several of the galleries but focused on the featured exhibition, Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones, which was a lot of fun; I highly recommend it. Our visit ended with an interactive photobooth where visitors could choose which hat would be virtually placed on their heads -- I went with the powder blue feather hat.

PEM's Hats included SJP's iconic Philip Treacy creation

Intricate bridal headdress from 1800s China;
dyed feather hat from 18th century England;
leather, wood, and sequin Christian Dior Haute Couture
by Stephen Jones hat from Autumn/Winter 2007

Playing dress-up with some outlandish hats!

Haunted Harbor Cruise

After PEM, we went on a Salem Harbor cruise with Mahi Mahi Cruises & Charters. The Hannah Glover was decorated for Halloween, and a costumed woman spoke of haunted lighthouses and other spooky stories, as I sipped on hot apple cider.

Ships in cold water, apple in hot cider

Lighthouses with an "old film" camera setting

The House of the Seven Gables

In addition to colonial, maritime, and witch history, Salem is also rich in literary history, as it is the birthplace of Nathaniel Hawthorne, which is immortalized in The House of the Seven Gables, also known as the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, built in 1668. The Nathaniel Hawthorne House, where the writer was born, was relocated next to the House of the Seven Gables in 1958.

Oldest surviving 17th century wooden mansion in New England

Nathaniel Hawthorne's birthplace

Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie

Across the street from the entrance to The House of the Seven Gables is Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie, America's oldest candy company since 1806. I insisted we wait on the long line to enter the store, and left with a bag full of candy!

Will wait for candy!

Witch History Museum

At the end of the day, we decided we should check out one of the witch museums. The Salem Witch Museum, the most popular one, was packed with tourists waiting to get in, so we went to the Witch History Museum instead. Afterwards, we went back to Saugus and had buffalo wings and popcorn shrimp while watching World Series baseball (Detroit vs. San Francisco) and college football (Michigan vs. Nebraska) at Buffalo Wild Wings near our hotel.

I'm pretty sure the original "witches" didn't look like that

Cracker Barrel, Charlton Orchards, and Obadiah McIntyre Farm Winery

On Sunday morning we started our drive back, planning to stop at an orchard and winery to see if they had any remaining fruit to be picked or wine to be tasted. While Saturday had been beautiful, Sunday was cold and rainy. We found a Cracker Barrel in Sturbridge, MA -- much better than the roadside service area options (we had also stopped at a different location on the way to our "New England Minimoon").

Eating and playing the Cracker Barrel game

We drove to Charlton Orchards and Obadiah McIntyre Farm Winery, but there wasn't any fruit picking and with the bad weather, no customers. They opened the store for us, and we bought a bag of McIntosh apples, a small bottle of Crimson Gold Red Raspberry Wine, and a bottle of Carbonated Apple Wine, and went back on the road.

Abandoned orchard and farm winery

My sister's family in NJ and my parents in Westchester are without power, and it could take a week to be repaired. My brother-in-law, who works at NYU Langone Medical Center -- which is still being evacuated -- was permitted to cross the bridge into Manhattan early this morning when he told them he is a doctor. My father, who also works at a hospital, went to work this morning too, but he doesn't have to cross any bridges or tunnels on his commute.

Mass transportation remains shut down, so this is my second day at home instead of in the office, which I found out lost power as did most of lower Manhattan. Yesterday I made potato-apple latkes, Hungarian apple soup, and chicken pot pie, and right now I'm thinking of baking chewy ginger cookies. Stay safe, East Coasters!

Autumn Craft Party

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day,
so I never have to live without you."

(A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh)

Isn't that a sweet quote? It doesn't have much to do with the rest this post, except that we used some adorable Winnie the Pooh stamps courtesy of Angela during the craft day at my apartment this past weekend. My friend Nuree and I planned the afternoon and invited a few creative gals we thought would be interested to join us. If anyone would like to be part of future craft parties, let us know!

Heat-embossed gift tags (Image: Christine M.)

After most of the group left by early evening, my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and baby niece came over for dinner, so I had a full house and a long but fun day! It was the first time having several people over since early September, when some of Sam's medical school friends came to hang out and see our place. (For that gathering, we did a simpler menu of "greatest hits" from our August dinners -- detailed in previous posts -- including the fajitas, sliders, potato salad, onion rings, and ice cream.)

An October Crafternoon
 

I love the colors of autumn, from the vivid oranges and reds of the leaves, to earthy browns and greens, to the lush fashion colors of burgundy and gold. I bought some party supplies to reflect the season.
 

Speaking of seasonal colors, some pretty Pantone palettes for fall events include Ultramarine Green, Honey Gold, French Roast, and Rhapsody, a muted plum; the muted blush tone Rose Smoke and deeper rose Pink Flambé; and don't forget Sunflower, which I posted about last time. (All images below from Wedding Paper Divas.)

Ultramarine Green

Honey Gold

French Roast

Rhapsody

Rose Smoke (my Vera wedding dress in Blush!)

Pink Flambé

The Food

Back to our craft day... On the coffee table was a spread consisting of Parmigiano Reggiano and brie cheeses with dried organic Turkish apricots, crackers, and Trader Joe's pumpkin butter; TERRA Exotic Harvest kabocha squash, carrot, and blue potato chips with onion yogurt dip; a tiered server with some fruit and lots of baked goodies brought by Nuree and Christine; and a glass pumpkin full of Snickers PB Squareds and Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis. To drink, we enjoyed apple cider, coffee, hot cocoa, and spicy chai lattes.

 

My friend Yang Sun brought a sweet little cake that we were too full to eat -- luckily it was enjoyed after the fact -- and my sister brought a lot of amazing desserts when she came over, too!

Cheese, dried organic apricots, crackers, pumpkin butter, and candy bars

Kobucha, carrot, and blue potato sea salt chips with onion yogurt dip

Delicious treats from Bouchon Bakery and Trader Joe's

For lunch, I made an apple mesclun salad (I meant for it to be an apple-pear salad, but the pears weren't ripe enough) of mixed greens, chopped apples, dried cranberries, walnuts, and a homemade dressing of olive oil, apple cider, and apple cider vinegar; Williams-Sonoma's 6-Hour Chili, which I adapted by swapping ground turkey and adding black beans and red kidney beans; and jalapeño-cheddar cornbread.

Lunch is served

Apple mesclun salad

Slow-cooked turkey chili

Jalapeño-cheddar cornbread

The Crafts

Now to the real reason we got together; although for a while it seemed like we were just going to sit and eat and not get around to crafting! I polled the attendees in advance and gave them some options on which craft to feature, and most seemed interested in heat-embossed stationery. Some girls also brought other projects to work on, including a Halloween costume and a knit scarf. Oh, and we watched the Stanford vs. Cal football game on TV.

 

I had learned the heat embossing technique at the Paper Source store in SoHo, and bought a heat tool, embossing powders, and some blank gift tags at Paper Presentation and some colored cards and envelopes at Papyrus; Nuree brought scrapbooking paper and a paper cutting; and Angela brought her stamps to add to the stamps I have.

 

I also placed all of my nail polishes on the table, for anyone to paint their nails at any point. Nail art is definitely a craft.

Nail polish, embossing powder and pad, stamps, heat tool, and paper supplies

Close-up of supplies for heat-embossed stationery

Close-up of some of the stamps

Heat embossing in action

Yes, I have a lot of nail polish! I like OPI, butter LONDON, and essie.

Our littlest craftgirl's glittery nails (Image: Nuree C.)

Amazing handmade spider Halloween costume (Image: Nuree C.)

So what's next: maybe a holiday craft party? I know I'm looking forward to buying our first Christmas tree!

 

A Little About Halloween

I put out my Hug Salt and Pepper Shakers from the MoMA store that my friend Robyn gave me years ago. The ghosts nest together really cutely in a hug... Aww.

"Let's hug it out"

Other than that, the extent of autumnal/Halloween decorating I've done is place some miniature white and orange pumpkins and crab apples around our dining area lamp. NYC doesn't do Halloween the way you see in the suburbs, but Park Slope is certainly more suburban than Manhattan.

Mini pumpkins and apples

Another day, maybe I'll post photos of past pumpkins I've carved -- since it doesn't look like I'll be doing any of that this year -- or costumes I've worn. But for fun, below is a photo of the costumes I ordered for next week! Can anyone guess what they are?

"Fra-GEE-lay. That must be Italian." (Image: Amazon.com)

Tonight we're going to the New York Repertory Orchestra's annual benefit, and tomorrow we're leaving for a weekend in Salem, Massachusetts, which should be really festive this time of year.

{Craft supplies: American Crafts Zing! Glitter and Metallic Embossing Powders in Black, Gold, Red, and Silver from Paper Presentation; Cake Vintage Italian-Scroll Placemat Pad from Sur La Table; Darice Multi-Purpose Heat Tool from Paper Presentation; Emboss Embossing Stamp Pad in Clear from Paper Presentation; Paper Presentation assorted sets of gift tags; Papyrus A2 cards and envelopes in Cement, Red, and Sage / Invitations: Paperless Post Watercolor Autumn Frame / Party supplies: Crate & Barrel Orange Paper Straws; Party City botanical print napkins in Pomegranate Brown; Party City cups, plates, and bowls in Berry}