Are you excited as I am for Thanksgiving or are you starting to dread it? Maybe that depends on your role.

Will you be a guest, a potluck participant, or the sole cook this Thanksgiving? They all require effort, just in different ways. As guests, we’re still on the hook for at least a bottle of wine – because “just bring yourselves” is code for “please, a fine chardonnay that I will drink from a measuring cup held by my tarnished manicured hands, when you all have gone.” Guests must also brush up on scintillating tableconversationand effusive comments about the fare, while looking stunning. Are we ready?

Potluckers work on their signatures dishes. I’m in this category most years and well, I find, my conversation is less scintillating and more often about the signatures dishes. I mean how many conversations can I start about gravy separators and potato ricers? I promise to work on that this year.

The sole cooks – well you are our Thanksgiving heroes and it is to you that this post is dedicated with two simple sides that bring color to your table and calm to your soul. A peace offering for last week’s stuffing challenge.

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Stuffing. What? youse got your bread, vegetables, seasonings, salt, some more salt – badda bing! If stuffing’s never been your assignment on Thanksgiving, be brave because we have a recipe that’s a doozy.

Apologies to my Jersey friends, but we are at The Shore in Southern Cal all week because the Middle School play, Midsummer/Jersey, opens on Friday. My son plays the obvious Shakespearean bronzed hairdresser, and although his director toyed with drag or feminine portrayals – he’s going full Andrew Dice Clay – Ooh! In rehearsals up to his eyeballs, so I can share something with you that used to give me stage fright – Stuffing.

For you Thanksgiving professionals, stuffing may be the easiest of the day’s spread. For me, it was hard to get skilled on the whole stuffing business when you only make it one time a year, while under the Iron Chef stress of timing fourteen dishes, and then your uncle throws you a culinary curveball – my date is gluten free. OMG what did the GF pilgrims do? Get the rice!

I’ve played with stuffing recipes over the years and failed every single time until last year when those fabulous cooking geeks at America’s Test Kitchen came to the rescue for us. Chris Kimball and his harem of uber chefstresses are my Kardashians. I can’t stop watching these all-knowing cooks try to out-fact each other while I try to keep up with lessons on protein breakdowns. These kitchen gods solved my dry, tasteless stuffing rut with three brilliant suggestions that I have to share with you. read more

I wasn’t going to share this with you not because we’re on a mission to ward off type 2 D and keep our heart rhythmic. I mean, my grandfather the butcher ate lard sandwiches and you know how that ended – lard attack at 63. No, I wasn’t going to share this brilliant recipe for pan roasted rib-eye steak with you because I didn’t possess the vocabulary breadth nor writing prowess to sufficiently convey the hedonistic pleasure that ignites when one morsel of this salt crusted, caramelized, insert word for fat nirvana, steak makes contact with just your lead tastebud – those other tastebuds can’t handle it. It’s all wrong and yet all very right – your consciences brawl – you’d be happy just tasting in fact you don’t want to ingest because the rest of your body will never love the steak like your tastebud did.

Here’s how we justify red meat, marbled with fat, seared with butter. It’s grass-fed? True grass-fed beef is better for you, but guys, if you make this steak at home, that means you’re cooking and if you’re cooking, you’re preparing sides – something green, perhaps. Beef offers killer protein, ask Grandpa, iron and many other nutrients. No one says you have to eat a 12 oz steak (except restaurants). So slice it up.

The recipe is simple. You’ll regret that your whole life you’ve been grilling steaks where you could have been roasting steaks the Susan Goin way.

Check it out. read more

My experience at farmers markets goes something like this: buy more than I’ll ever eat, schlepp my bags with cart-envy, and get lessons from strangers. It’s the same for me at any market, in any town. I’m just happy to be among the food and the food people.

Squash blossom quesadilla came from one of those generous lectures. A lady was grabbing fistfuls of blossoms – 2 pounds to be exact. When that is-she-stuffing-mattresses look came across my face – you know the one – she shared – I mean gushed – I mean wept about the wonders of squash blossom quesadillas. How could I refuse a bag; that ironically squashed under melons in my sad sacks. First batch – eh. I researched more, talked with the squash blossom vendor again and made a few more batches and then this week something magical happened.

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If possible, I would insert the wafts of warm, pâtisseriescents that billow out of my oven so you could scratch and sniff this photograph. “What are you baking and I want a piece now!” the 13 year old demanded in his loud, crackling teenage boy voice. I took it as a compliment attack. The aroma of fresh baked confections usually do not hang in my kitchen. I’m afraid of baking; it’s so precise.

Guys, this one works for the lamest of bakers – moi. Make it for guests you want to impress with “oh this ‘ol recipe,” reward your family after a dinner of baked tuna and kelp noodles (that may or may not be you Leslie) or make it for your own Pity Party. Even the richest ingredients provide a healthy measure using real food ingredients that are absent of preservatives and chemicals. read more