I start the dough making immediately. “Get the scrapbooks,” I tell Olivia. Flipping through pages of Empanada Days over the years, I look at the pictures of the girls smushing balls of dough in their highchairs. The note, scribbled beneath the step-by-step photos, says: about half a cup of shortening for every three or four cups of flour. I have no idea how much water to use, so I try to guess at the recipe that lives in Nelly’s heart, not a scrapbook. “We can do this, girls.”

Nelly and I met more than a decade ago; she was the first and last person to come into my kitchen when I interviewed for caregivers. Back to work, I was in need of childcare for Olivia and Sophia, now 12 and 13, then just babies. Nelly lived with us during the week; a few years after she came I had my son Johnny — Juanito as Nelly called him.

Johnny hung on my hip the morning I told Nelly I was getting divorced. I’d been up all night and the tears dropped into my cold coffee. Nelly, herself a single mother of three grown children, helped us through the custody battle, that excruciating year. Six years have passed since Nelly lived with us, and in that time Sophia and Olivia have been bridesmaids in Nelly’s daughter’s wedding, and I’m aunt to Nelly’s grandchildren. Even though we no longer share our day-to-days, Nelly is still our Nelly, and Empanada Day still stands.

One morning, after Nelly had been with us for a year, she came into the kitchen, put on her red apron, and set out three pounds of London broil. “I make empanadas today,” she said, and began dicing the meat. “It take time,” she said, adding the onions. Hours later, she brought Sophia and Olivia in, and they became a part of Nelly’s handiwork, folding and kneading small balls of the dough while seated in their highchairs. Nelly made more than a hundred empanadas that day; we took platefuls to each house in our neighborhood. We agreed thereafter to make them together once a year. I have few traditions or recipes passed down from my family, so I loved borrowing from Nelly and her Bolivian roots.

I scoop cups of flour into a mound on the counter. I make a well in the center, volcano style, just like in the old photo I use for guidance. “Is this right?” I ask as Olivia cracks eggs into the well. Sophia adds the shortening, I guess at the amount of water and attempt to knead the mixture into a ball. The dough is the size of a football, and it’s way off — mucky, sticky. I add more flour and the powder falls on the floor in fistfuls. I panic, add more flour, the ball grows. “You should have let Nelly do it,” the girls say, laughing now.

On the drive to Nelly’s house the next morning, I pull over and the girls and I run into the Stop ‘N Shop looking for the Goya aisle. I put the premade empanada dough in the cart. I’m stoic at the checkout line; the girls know not to say anything.

When we enter Nelly’s house, I blurt, “Mine didn’t work!” and pass her the plastic grocery bag with the store-bought stuff. She talks us into the kitchen of her tiny apartment with kisses. It’s as if Nelly expected this. “Come, my moneka,” she says to Sophia and Olivia and maybe me, too, her little dolls. “No importa. I do it,” she says, pulling the canister of flour from the cabinet. She is small, the same height as Sophia, her black hair cut into a bob at her chin, her dark skin smooth as a wine bottle.

Nelly is quick with her movements from sink to counter; she once again works too fast for me to transfer her spontaneous measurements to my head. She gives Olivia and Sophia each a rolling pin.

Nelly made the filling last night, a detailed mixture that includes meat with olives, hard-boiled egg and potatoes, all diced to the size of green peas. The girls and Nelly put a spoonful of meat in the center of each circle of dough, and set to work folding them into crescents, crimping the rounded side by hand, so the meat won’t ooze when Nelly fries the thin pouches. I have to crimp with a fork. I can’t pinch the edges the way they do.

As Nelly’s hands seal the dough, I think of her in the kitchen of my old house, making arroz con pollo, the girls playing with letter magnets, sticking them on the fridge. I remember those long days coming home from work late, running upstairs to see the children, bathed and smelling of baby powder, curled up on Nelly’s bed, watching Spanish soap operas. I remember the nights when Sophia was learning to read, and Nelly practiced her English alongside her. All those Frog and Toad books.

The kitchen smells of cumin and olives as Nelly fries the empanadas. She removes each pouch with a slotted spoon and places the crispy crowns on a paper towel.

I sip coffee, watching Nelly and Sophia and Olivia work. Maybe it’s just as well I wasn’t able to make the dough; the pleasure of seeing Nelly with my daughters, her hands over their hands as they roll, makes me as happy as I have ever been. And I know it will be my girls, not me, who will make the dough in the future, when Nelly and I are old, and we all gather for Empanada Day.

Nelly’s empanadas

Makes about 40 empanadas

A few weeks later, on Thanksgiving Day, I did something almost as stupid. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been when handling the turkey (you know — wash your hands frequently, use a designated cutting board, disinfect surfaces …) and I spent the night singing whale songs into the deep, mysterious hole at the bottom of the toilet. The next morning, I was in the emergency room.

The CDC estimates that in the U.S. there are 76 million food-borne illnesses per year and over 5,000 deaths. Bacteria-laced poultry is the leading source of food poisoning. So there were others like me in the E.R. that morning, women and men with mint-green faces, wretchedly hunched over cramping bellies, clutching an assortment of decorative bathroom trash cans under their chins. One trash can had mockingly happy Disney characters on it. After a miserable, interminable wait, I was given IV fluids, Phenergan and another deliciously heady medicine that had me nattering on about how creepy it is that Mickey Mouse wears gloves but no shirt.

It was pretty easy to give up turkey after that. The next Thanksgiving, I brought a Tofurkey to the family gathering. It wasn’t bad, just a little eerie in its fleshy texture, and in general, if I look at a food product and envision the manufacturing process — a large vat, gelatinous slurry, an extruder — it’s an appetite turnoff. When it comes to the Thanksgiving feast, meat substitutes are unnecessary. There are always plenty of meat-free offerings among the casseroles and side dishes. I’ve never gone hungry.

The most difficult adjustment has been editing recipes to suit a less-than-adventurous crowd. When you remove meat from your diet you have to replace the flavor with other ingredients. Sometimes those ingredients are unconventional, even weird, and Thanksgiving seems to bring out the traditionalist in everyone. They want the same green bean casserole, the same sweet potato soufflé, the same stuffing. If I’m being honest, seeing the same spread year after year is reassuring, comforting. My mother and my mother-in-law are still with us, still healthy, and on Thanksgiving, the kitchen is still their domain.

This year, I’ll bring a bowl of vegetarian gravy and a big salad with homemade dressing and croutons. I’ll join the matriarchs in the kitchen, chop pecans for the stuffing,  set the table, make sure the bread doesn’t burn. I’ll wash my hands a lot, and remind them to do the same! And I’ll be oh-so-thankful I’ve had one more year as a “kid.” 

Bellwether’s Vegetarian Gravy

I promise you won’t miss the pan drippings! If you’ve ever had a vegetarian gravy or stew and the flavor was “thin,” lacking umami, the missing ingredient is nutritional yeast. It’s a staple in a vegetarian pantry. I add it to soups, stews, gravies, pot pie and shepherd’s pie fillings. You can buy it at any health food store, just be sure you don’t pick up brewer’s yeast by mistake.

Note: To make mushroom gravy, add a cup of chopped mushrooms to the oil when you add the onion. To make tomato gravy, add a large tomato, finely diced, to the pan once the onions are translucent, and cook until the tomato is softened before proceeding with the rest of the recipe.

“Guancia” in Italian means pillow, which is synonymous with cheek. And it’s the facial aspect of the word, and the animal, that found its way into the kitchens of central Italy. Apparently pancetta, the familiar smoked and cured pork belly, simply wasn’t bold enough for rendering purposes, so they went to the face and found a far more profound flavor. To produce guanciale, the jowls of a hog are short-cured (three to four weeks) in salt and sugar and spices. The abbreviated process works well with the jowls’ combination of streaked meat and thick fat. And it’s that fat/meat quotient (as opposed to pancetta, which is meatier) that makes guanciale such a solid base. The fat melts in a hot pan, leaving the tender meat and a silky lipid of smoke and salt that informs but doesn’t overwhelm any soup or sauce.

Guanciale is best as the base of a pasta dish. And the most famous pasta using guanciale is the central Italian wonder known as amatriciana. Not surprisingly, there’s some controversy among the Italians as to the origins of amatriciana. Towns from regions of Abruzzo, Umbria and Lazio claim the superior preparation with appropriate noodle, but (with all due respect to the namesake Lazian town of Amatri) the king versions reign in the trattorias of Rome using the bucatini noodle — a thick spaghetti with a little hole (or “buco”) that runs through it. And, of course, within Rome, there are various versions, each the ultimo.

Regardless, a standard version begins with the guanciale, rendered slowly before taking in slow succession: thin red onions, a touch of red pepper flakes, plum tomatoes, torn basil leaves, and, for the finish, some grated pecorino with a swirl of olive oil and a confetti of basil. What you have is a broad balance of flavors with the guanciale holding it all together. Like most Italian dishes, this is simple to prepare. The challenge is coming up with the same quality of ingredients that are abundant in Italy.

For years, American cooks and chefs have used pancetta for dishes that traditionally call for guanciale, since it’s easier to find. But true, imported guanciale can be found in some big town specialty shops and major markets. The local butcher is always the best place to inquire. Guanciale can also be mail ordered from importers and a few national producers.

Bucatini all’amatriciana

There are a number of ways to use guanciale, but it seems appropriate to start with the classic

Serves 4 as a main course, 6-8 as a starter

Frustrated, I took matters into my own hands and bought a small smoker. I’m afraid I’ve become something of an addict. The same way alcoholics look at cough syrup and see alcohol syrup, I look at food and see smoked food: peppers, garlic, tofu, tomatoes, corn, zucchini, okra, kale, eggplant, eggs and cold smoked cheeses. One day, as the fire died out, I had the bright idea of smoking a bowl of dog food, just briefly, to see if the dogs would be as seduced by the flavor of smoke as I had become. (They were. Seduced. When I carry the smoker from the shed they circle it like it’s a smoked kibble Pez dispenser.)

So here are some smoking tips, from someone who knows:

• Before smoking blocks of super-firm tofu, press it, freeze it, thaw it, cut it in half lengthwise, and marinate it in soy sauce for a couple of hours. Smoke it for four hours, or until it’s the firmness of ham. Hickory gives it just the right amount of flavor and color. Mesquite smokes it to a burnt hue, although the flavor is fine.
• Plum tomatoes are the easiest to smoke because they are fleshier than other varieties. Halve them and smoke them for four hours. Slip the skins off before using. If you want a drier tomato (more like a sun-dried tomato), slow-roast them in the oven first, and then smoke briefly.
• Large portobello mushroom caps should be heavily oiled before they are smoked, otherwise they get very dry.
• Roast and peel bell peppers before you smoke them.
• Don’t hang your laundry anywhere near the smoker, unless you want to smell BBQ as things heat up during your morning walk.

Recently, my mom and dad went fishing and brought home five pounds of mullet fillets. For those unfamiliar with mullet, it’s what some might call a trash fish. It’s plentiful along the Gulf Coast. You see them running the bays and bayous in large schools, showoff jumping and landing with a splash. Anyone proficient with a net can scoop up a mess with one toss. Mullet has a strong, unique flavor and is typically fried or smoked. Roadside mullet smokers used to be common, but I haven’t seen one in the Panhandle for many years. My dad remembers large cans of salted mullet that they soaked before cooking, the way you’d soak salt cod. That was before my time.

I commandeered most of the mullet fillets for my smoker, because nobody needs five pounds of mullet lying around unless you’re running a booth at the Mullet Festival. I cut out the blood line (essential for fishy fish), dry-rubbed it with kosher salt, pepper and brown sugar, and smoked it for three hours. Since then, we’ve eaten smoked mullet with eggs and grits, smoked mullet tacos, smoked mullet bacalhau, smoked mullet hash, and smoked mullet straight, like a shot of vodka.

High on hickory smoke and bloated with salty fish, I needed to use up all of the smoked ingredients that were bursting from my refrigerator, so I threw a Halloween picnic for my daughter and her friends, who were visiting from college for the weekend. The menu featured everything smoky, including — yes! — the very last bit of smoked mullet.

Every mullet-loving Gulf Coast family has its own recipe for smoked mullet spread. Here’s our version.

Smoked mullet spread

Makes about 3 cups

Visitors to the Gulf Coast of Florida are often surprised by the diversity of our population. In the mid-1970s, thousands of Vietnamese refugees were relocated here. Military installations dot the coastline and the interior, and servicepeople returning home from foreign assignments often bring families from overseas. We have large Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Filipino communities, and smaller groups from England, Turkey, Germany, Italy and Japan. Following the run of hurricanes a few years back, Mexican workers poured in to replace blue tarps with new roofs, and stayed for the construction boom. Once that passed, many moved on, but some have settled and opened restaurants and markets.

I like to browse the Mexican market, pick up bags of glossy dried peppers, inhale their smoky bitterness. I buy a new variety each time and experiment. The outrageously expressive man who runs the deli counter says, “Mamita linda! What do you want today?” If he has something new, he is insistent that I try it, and I oblige, always nodding my approval effusively enough to make him smile in satisfaction. In an invented familial history, he is my brother-in-law. One who delights everyone with his extravagant gestures and compliments, and who will surely — we all see it coming — break my sister’s heart.

The improbably blond, olive-skinned woman who owns the small Mediterranean market wears a permanent scowl. She has no patience for the Southern roundabout way of talking, the lack of urgency, the incessant smiling with intent to charm. She’s like a misanthropic aunt who visits once a year, very briefly, leaving behind hurt feelings and strange, miserly gifts. I’ve learned to suppress my need to win her over and get straight to the point. “What is this?” I ask, pointing to a  new cheese in the case. Or, “Is this bread fresh? Made today?” Questions that would be rude to anyone of Southern sensibilities, but which seem to please her, or to not displease her.

In the Thai market, the elderly man speaks little English. The elderly woman’s English is much better. I’m short, and she comes to my chin. Frail-boned with a grip that hurts my hand as she leads me through her store, pointing to the things I need, explaining how the ingredients must be used. Being led down the aisles, tightly packed with exotic ingredients, it’s easy to imagine I’m in Thailand, visiting relatives. I visit infrequently and, given her age, I won’t see her again; she has limited time to teach me all she knows. We had better hurry. It explains the clutched hand, the seriousness of her instruction.

At home I unload my purchases onto the counter. A bewildering, intimidating assortment of products. Panic rises. Then I recall the words of my new Thai relative. After all of her insistence, when she packs my grocery sacks, she grants me this: “I tell you how to make, but you make your own.” I relax, because nothing that tastes good is foreign.

Maybe a country’s culture and history, when borrowed and eaten, can in some small way create ethnicity. I hope one day I’ll visit the places of my favorite foods — Greece, Italy, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam. When I step foot on the land, I might feel instantly at home. I might hear these words: I know you! You are one of mine! 

I created this dish to honor my homeland and one I’ve adopted, something familiar and something new. 

Boiled Peanuts, Thai Style

In the South, most people prefer their boiled peanuts cooked until they are very soft.  If you’ve tried boiled peanuts and found them mushy and unpalatable, try cooking up a batch that isn’t boiled completely soft. Despite the debate among my family and friends (some a’gin me, some with me), I hold firm in my opinion that they taste better when they are the texture of canned chickpeas rather than canned English peas! You can cook them however long you like.