Early November 1999, I was driving down a rural highway on a sunny afternoon. As I rounded a corner, I was startled to see a wild turkey trotting across a cotton field — faster than you might imagine — heading toward the road. Math was not my best subject, but given my speed, the turkey’s speed and our projected paths, even I could calculate that we were a bloody word problem about to happen.
At the moment his body should have been hitting my windshield and exploding like a grotesque feather pillow, he flew back a few paces and I whizzed by without hitting him. “Stupid turkey!” I groused. “You almost got yourself killed!”
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.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon butter
- ¼ cup sweet onion, finely minced
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 1¾ cups vegetable broth (or one 14.5 ounce can of Swanson’s Vegetable Broth)
- 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
- A small pinch each of sage, thyme and marjoram
- Kosher salt and fresh black pepper to taste.
- ¼ cup heavy cream
Directions
- Measure the 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast into a small bowl and cover with a bit of very hot water. Stir until smooth and set aside.
- In a heavy skillet, heat the olive oil and the butter over medium heat. Sauté the minced onion until it is soft and slightly brown. Sprinkle the flour into the pan and stir to combine with the oil/butter/onion. Cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly.
- Time to break out the whisk. Whisk in the nutritional yeast. At this point it will look dreadful (clumpy and oddly colored). Don’t worry! It will come together once the broth is added and whisked smooth.
- Slowly whisk in the vegetable broth. Whisk continuously until the mixture is bubbly and thick.
- Add the soy sauce, and the herbs. Be sure you taste the gravy before you add any salt. Both vegetable broth and soy sauce can be significantly salty. Add pepper liberally.
- Lastly, add the heavy cream and heat through.
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.
Butternut squash butter
Butternut squash is easier to work with than a standard pumpkin and cheaper than smaller pie pumpkins. You can call it “pumpkin butter,” if you like, though the butternut squash might be resentful at being wrongly labeled, and rightfully so.
Ingredients
- 1 medium butternut squash (about 2.5 pounds)
- 2 cups unsweetened apple cider
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- pinch of salt
Directions
- Peel the butternut squash, making sure to peel until you reach the orange flesh. Scoop out the seeds, and chop the flesh into 1-inch pieces.
- In a saucepan with a lid, simmer the squash, covered, in 2 cups of apple cider over medium low heat until it’s very, very tender, about 45 minutes, stirring more frequently as the squash breaks down and gets sticky.
- Purée with an immersion blender or in a standard blender until smooth. If the mixture is very loose or liquid (as happens sometimes if you get less flesh from the squash than you expect), return it to the saucepan and reduce it over medium heat, stirring continuously until it’s thickened, and then remove from the heat. It will thicken slightly as it cools. Similarly, you can thin with more apple cider or water if it’s thicker than you’d like.
- Add the other ingredients and adjust the seasonings. You may need more sweetener depending on the sweetness of the squash and cider you started with. You may also prefer more cinnamon. (I like the cinnamon to be very subtle.) Spoon into a glass jar or bowl and let it cool thoroughly before using. It will keep in the refrigerator for about three weeks.
Cheddar pecan scones
I make these in many different varieties — dried cherry and lemon zest; Irish soda bread with caraway seeds and golden raisins; and cannoli-style with mini chocolate chips and candied orange peel, filled with sweetened ricotta cheese — but this version is the one I make most often.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon ground red pepper, or a pinch of cayenne pepper
- 5 tablespoon butter, very cold, cut into small pieces
- 1½ cups grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- 1 cup heavy cream (plus a little more to brush on the top of the scones)
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 425°. In a food processor, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, garlic powder and red pepper. Pulse a few times.
- Dot the butter across the top of the flour mixture and pulse 15 times.
- Add the cheese and pecans. Pulse a few more times to mix them in.
- Pour the cream over the top and pulse briefly, until the mixture begins to come together. Dump the mixture (there will be some dry, floury bits still unmixed) onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently until you can form it into a craggly ball.
- Pat into a circle that is about 8 inches across, and cut into eight wedges. Place a couple of inches apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet (or use parchment or silpat). Brush the top of each scone with a bit of cream.
- Bake for about 15 minutes. If the bottoms are brown before the tops are browned, broil the tops until they are nice and golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Split in half and spread with butter and butternut squash butter.
Your family will not let you change. They know you too well, or they think they know you too well — deeply, through the muscle, to the bone. In their eyes, you lost your chance to turn out differently once your fontanelle fused.
For instance, during one brutal round of Trouble — a board game in which players gang up on other players, sending their pieces back to the start again and again — I threw the playing pieces against the wall, stomped on the board, smashed the bubble that held the dice and was thereafter labeled a “sore loser.” Never mind that the fateful game of Trouble happened 38 years ago, when I was 5, and since then I’ve gone on to fail and lose at many other (more important) things with a minimum of ungracious behavior and private stewing, to my family I will forever be a “sore loser.”
Shortly into our marriage, my husband added “cheater.” It wasn’t infidelity he accused me of, it was the kind of cheating related to being a “sore loser,” which my family had, of course, already warned him about.
We were playing Battleship and I was seated where I could easily see his fleet. You’d think the math genius would catch on immediately when every letter-number I called out was a direct hit, but toward the end of the game he was still shaking his head in amazement at my prescient guesses, and I had to confess. I assumed he would be amused. He was not (because he’s “judgmental” and a “buzzkill”). Oh, and he’s also a “picky eater.” That’s the label he’s carried forth from childhood, the one he’s long since outgrown and which makes him furious when it’s flung out like a courtroom accusation. I think he’d rather be called a “murderer.”
Clearly, given my fondness for roots and leaves, he’s not a picky eater. The only food he genuinely dislikes is squash. The word itself elicits a lip curl and an involuntary shudder. As a “cheater,” I used to sneak it into our meals at every opportunity. If he ate it happily, I’d smugly inform him that he just ate squash, and wasn’t it delicious!? If he took a bite and paused to ask — “Is there squash in here?” — I’d get huffy and remind him he could always cook his own damn meal, and, anyway, I couldn’t be expected to cater to his limited palate. Sometimes “picky eater” and “sore loser” were thrown.
In the years since, I’ve stopped being sneaky about it. He has a right to food preferences. If I prepare a dish that contains squash, I tell him and he decides whether it’s something he can stomach. On his part, he always takes a taste and has learned to love, or tolerate, squash in some preparations. Which is evidence that people do change — if you let them.
It’s not hard to love slightly sweet, butternut squash “butter” spread on cheddar pecan scones. Serve with a big green salad, a crisp chardonnay and a board game of your choice.
Butternut squash butter
Butternut squash is easier to work with than a standard pumpkin and cheaper than smaller pie pumpkins. You can call it “pumpkin butter,” if you like, though the butternut squash might be resentful at being wrongly labeled, and rightfully so.
Ingredients
- 1 medium butternut squash (about 2.5 pounds)
- 2 cups unsweetened apple cider
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- pinch of salt
Directions
- Peel the butternut squash, making sure to peel until you reach the orange flesh. Scoop out the seeds, and chop the flesh into 1-inch pieces.
- In a saucepan with a lid, simmer the squash, covered, in 2 cups of apple cider over medium low heat until it’s very, very tender, about 45 minutes, stirring more frequently as the squash breaks down and gets sticky.
- Purée with an immersion blender or in a standard blender until smooth. If the mixture is very loose or liquid (as happens sometimes if you get less flesh from the squash than you expect), return it to the saucepan and reduce it over medium heat, stirring continuously until it’s thickened, and then remove from the heat. It will thicken slightly as it cools. Similarly, you can thin with more apple cider or water if it’s thicker than you’d like.
- Add the other ingredients and adjust the seasonings. You may need more sweetener depending on the sweetness of the squash and cider you started with. You may also prefer more cinnamon. (I like the cinnamon to be very subtle.) Spoon into a glass jar or bowl and let it cool thoroughly before using. It will keep in the refrigerator for about three weeks.
Cheddar pecan scones
I make these in many different varieties — dried cherry and lemon zest; Irish soda bread with caraway seeds and golden raisins; and cannoli-style with mini chocolate chips and candied orange peel, filled with sweetened ricotta cheese — but this version is the one I make most often.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon ground red pepper, or a pinch of cayenne pepper
- 5 tablespoon butter, very cold, cut into small pieces
- 1½ cups grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- 1 cup heavy cream (plus a little more to brush on the top of the scones)
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 425°. In a food processor, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, garlic powder and red pepper. Pulse a few times.
- Dot the butter across the top of the flour mixture and pulse 15 times.
- Add the cheese and pecans. Pulse a few more times to mix them in.
- Pour the cream over the top and pulse briefly, until the mixture begins to come together. Dump the mixture (there will be some dry, floury bits still unmixed) onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently until you can form it into a craggly ball.
- Pat into a circle that is about 8 inches across, and cut into eight wedges. Place a couple of inches apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet (or use parchment or silpat). Brush the top of each scone with a bit of cream.
- Bake for about 15 minutes. If the bottoms are brown before the tops are browned, broil the tops until they are nice and golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Split in half and spread with butter and butternut squash butter.
Like a lot of once-were carnivores, I miss a few meaty things. Fried chicken. Beef fillet, very rare. Bacon, of course, and smoked pig in piquant sauces. Dealing with these longings is all about rendering them down to individual flavors and textures. When I longed for fried chicken, what I really wanted was anything fried — fried okra or fried green tomatoes. Juicy beef fillet was a desire for salt, in brothy form — a miso-based soup.
Cravings for smoky pork products were harder to satisfy. Smoked paprika and smoked sun-dried tomatoes are great ingredients, fairly new to our grocery store, but they provide background smoke, not smoke smoke. Our only local health food store carried blocks of smoked tofu, and I used it to make quiche and breakfast burritos. Then the store went out of business, replaced by a Zaxby’s.
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
Ingredients
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 3 green onions, mostly tops, finely diced
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- Zest of one lemon
- Juice of half a lemon
- ½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper
- ½ teaspoon Vietnamese garlic chili sauce or sriracha (or to taste) – we like lots.
- 2 cups finely diced smoked mullet (use the thick, meaty portions, not the hard-smoked ends)
Directions
- Combine the cream cheese, onion, mayo, Worcestershire, lemon zest, lemon juice, pepper and garlic chili sauce. Add the smoked mullet.
- Taste and add additional heat or lemon juice as needed for balance, and add mayonnaise as needed for consistency. You may or may not need to add salt, depending on the saltiness of the smoked mullet. Our smoked mullet is on the salty side because we prefer to use a dry rub rather than a brine.
I have no ethnic heritage. My parents grew up poor and white in the rural South, born into families with no discoverable history prior to the early 1920s. No one remembers a homeland. Being “American” and “Southern” should be enough, and it is enough, but I long for connection to an Old Country, to know traditions and recipes that have been kept alive, lovingly tended, across geography and time. Denied that connection, I console myself by visiting the ethnic markets that have sprouted up in our modest-size town.
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.
Ingredients
- 3 pounds unshelled green peanuts, thoroughly washed and sorted. Discard any with broken or discolored shells. (Green peanuts aren’t green in color; they are raw, fresh peanuts that haven’t been roasted or dried.)
- 2-3 tablespoons chili garlic sauce (preferred) or sriracha
- Enough water to cover peanuts completely
- Enough kosher salt that the water tastes distinctly salty, almost too salty
- Juice of 2 limes
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce (Go easy on the fish sauce. It’s an acquired taste, but essential in small doses.)
- ½ cup finely chopped cilantro
Directions
- In a large pot with a lid, cover the washed peanuts with water. Add the red chili garlic sauce and salt. As it heats up, taste the water for salt and heat. It should be quite salty, and quite zesty. Cook the peanuts at a slow boil with the lid on until they are done. It’s difficult to say how long done will take. It depends upon the size and age of the peanuts. They become drier as they age and need more cooking time. Start taste testing at about 2 hours and every half-hour after that. If you like them soft, it may take 4-6 hours. Be sure to taste several before you decide on their doneness. Let them cool in the cook pot until they are just cool enough to handle before proceeding to the next step.
- In a large bowl, mix the lime juice, honey, fish sauce and cilantro. Scoop the warm peanuts from the boiling pot. (Don’t worry about draining thoroughly — a little bit of the salty water is good.) Toss them in the cilantro lime mixture. Use your teeth to split the shells so that you taste plenty of the seasoning as you eat them. We eat them on the back porch, sipping green tea with ginger or Singha beer. If the squirrels take off with the shells, you didn’t make them hot enough!
Mullets 
Four fresh trouts in smoker oven.(Credit: Patricia Hofmeester) 
