home style: thanksgiving, 2010

i have always had a tendency to downplay our family thanksgiving celebration.

when i was growing up, the holiday was positively traumatic for one reason: no turkey at our table. we had ham. i used to mope about how un-american it was. (the fact that my family was not american, not by birth anyway, except for me, didn't make a difference. we lived here.)

as our family grew, and my american-born cousins were old enough to collect their loud voices over "the turkey situation," our table started to take on the appearance of something more traditional. turkey is now a standby, next to the prime rib and the pork lechon and the barbeque skewers (yes, my people enjoy bbq skewers all year long). we made room for more dishes with potatoes (even the sweet ones) and green beans and brussels sprouts. we now have pies filled with apples and they sit next to pear tarts and flans and fried bananas (and other weird filipino treats).

but i'm still sometimes guilty of judging this holiday, more than any other, on ideas of what it should be, based on lore, rather celebrating what it is.

for us, thanksgiving is, more often than not, a very full house, a game of musical chairs (the music being the meal). we attack the table in waves, and shift from chair to couch to standing spot, while stories and jokes are told at a loud and fever pitch in two languages (so amid all the laughing, some of us get a little bit lost. we laugh more, anyway). and then eat more.

not sure a thanksgiving gets much better or happier than that.

here are a few photos from this year's good time.

mom's roasted brussels sprouts, with bacon.

or is it mom's bacon with roasted brussels sprouts?

homemade lumpia

lechon

filipino-style bbq

with jason (and a skewer)

does this count as a vegetable?

pancit - my aunt makes this better than any restaurant could

see, we had a turkey (not for long)

grace before the meal

cornbread stuffing--this one might be my new favorite, love the sweetness of the bread

my contribution this year: blum's coffee crunch cake

apple tart

pear tart

yes, this is a purple and orange and white dessert, made of glutinous rice.

you can understand why a kid would think this is the height of weirdness, yes?

turon! fried bananas, drizzled with caramelized sugar

6 cousins and a baby.

thank you (george)

i've spent the last couple of hours sitting in our family room (the basement) with my dad, half-watching a college basketball game (sun devils vs. blue devils) and half-looking for a good thanksgiving poem to post. I had with me on the couch the thickest poetry book I could find –a good old norton anthology--but not even part of one, from yeats to baraka, seemed right.

admittedly, the ambiance i chose for this exercise wasn't really poetry-friendly (dick vitale's "alliterative commentaries,” even though i've heard them all before, are still pretty distracting).

i could have gone to my room, re-started the search in relative silence and with several other books to peruse. but i wanted more to just sit in a room with my dad, to be around in case something came up that we felt like chatting about. or he thought of a good joke. i decided to save the poetry for another time.

after both my parents called it a night, i got my second wind and started singing a favorite george harrison tune (remember, the family is asleep, so i can do this out loud) and it occurred to me that this song fits the giving/grateful theme as good as any poem. or maybe it’s late and i’m crazy. anyway, it’s where my heart is. hope you like it.




i’ve been on a george jag for the last couple of weeks so here’s one more. it's really quite good live.



happy thanksgiving.

piym: in need of a fresh take?

photographing this fresh green bean casserole was a little challenging. obviously, i was to make it look pretty and delicious...but it's a melange of cooked vegetables. it's very brown. even at the time, i was thinking, i'm not doing this justice. i covered it from various angles, but how many different ways can you photograph a cooked casserole in the casserole dish?

after the shoot was over, i thought of different ways we could have approached it--which seems to happen after every shoot. but there is formula at PIYM, sort of dictated by time and space and the script. maybe in the new year, we'll try something different? i suppose it's fine, my little disappointments with the photos, because it's a reminder of things that i need to work on.

***

what's great about piym shoots, is 90% of the time, jess makes real food--food that's ready to eat as soon as it's shot. i wouldn't advise this at most food shoots when the beauty of the shot supersedes all notions of clean food prep. even if the food is fresh and fully cooked through and free of the additives that make it more photogenic (glycerine, glue, soap suds...), it's been seriously manhandled, violated even.

but when jess says that what she's prepared for the shoot is good for the eating (and if there is some left), i'll have at least a bite or two. i went a little bananas with this fresh green bean casserole, though. it's just so everything i'd want with my turkey. in fact, i'd make the turkey the vehicle for this creamy, onion-y affair.

i don't have a very long history with green bean casserole (it's relatively new to our family's thanksgiving table--we only started having turkey in the last 15 years or so, and only in the last five have one or two "traditional" sides, involving the beans or sweet potatoes or cranberries, made their unremarkable way into the buffet) so i never really understood its enduring appeal, other than the novelty of the store-bought fried onions? this fresh stuff, to me, was a revelation.

if you don't have a recipe that you're married to, try jess'. it's pretty simple. just don't skimp on the real heavy cream, and maybe approach the little bit of extra prep time, trimming and halving the beans, slicing the mushrooms and onions, as meditative act rather than a mandated chore. when it's served, people will talk.

and then they will eat. and then they will talk more and eat more. until pretty soon they will be harassing you for the recipe, while battling for the last bites.

and if you are inclined to share, send them here.