Thanksgiving (and Taking)

Last-minute recipes, tips for keeping calm and distractions

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving Eve.

(If you click the “like” heart below, I promise all your pie crusts will be tender and your mashed potatoes buttery! Yes, it’s true, the algorithm controls our lives.)

Maybe you just remembered you need to pick up a 5-pound bag of potatoes on the way home from work. (Get more butter. And another pint of vanilla ice cream.) Perhaps you’re one of those people where everything’s done, neatly stacked in the fridge, and, inspired by the Martha documentary, you’re now using your free time to carve home-grown gourds to resemble each member of your family. (Or making beautiful ice cubes for the morning mimosas like Her Most Amazing Joyce Vance.)

Joyce Vance’s gorgeous ice cubes, made with orange juice. She’ll drop these into champagne for grown-ups. For those who don’t drink alcohol, she makes a version with pineapple juice and drops those into ginger ale.

Maybe Thanksgiving isn’t your thing, and you’re enjoying “Franchise” on (HBO)Max, a very funny take on the movie industry c/o Armando Ianucci, the creator of “Veep.” Or “The Detroiters,” because you need some goofy, warm, slightly adolescent buddy comedy for distraction.

Perhaps like a lot of us, you’re just chugging along, and are concerned the pie crust will be soggy and the turkey dry and who the jerk is who will complain about that, and you’re pondering spatchcocking your turkey (do it) and, and….deep breaths. I offer you my yearly reminder, c/o of my wise and lovely mother: “It’s only dinner. Don’t worry.”

That said, a wee apology from me for not getting this Substack out to you sooner…I’ve been joyfully busy working on the photography for my cookbook with the amazing photographer, Amy Roth. Amy is a noted food photographer and most recently did the photos for Al Roker’s cookbook. The days have been long and require a lot of making and baking. And yes, we will be eating chocolate chip cookies for dessert this Thanksgiving.

Amy Roth at work. And yes, that’s a ping-pong table.

And now:

Need some pepping up?

Watching this makes me giddy.

Need to make something last minute?

Make this Cranberry Nantucket Pie (which is really a spiced upside-down cake).

Make a Maple-Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake

Make Apple Cider Caramel, pour it over vanilla ice cream, serve with store-bought shortbread and relax.

Need to make pie crust but feeling nervous?

Mollie Katzen will make you feel better (and shows you how to make pie crust easy-peasy.

Need to feel seen?

This is c/o of my son and was found somewhere on the Internet and apologize for not knowing the original source.

Since we can’t all have dinner together, but Oh! wouldn’t that be amazing…What is your favorite Thanksgiving advice? What is your least favorite Thanksgiving advice? Share with us all, because we all sure could use it.

(And later, after dinner maybe, when we’re washing up, we can talk about how a Certain Someone had their federal cases dismissed and how that makes us feel. Or maybe we should just have another slice of pie and save that topic for a time when we don’t risk dropping Grandma’s heirloom china on the floor in anger.)

Hey! Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Thank you!

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