November 26, 2015 Breakfast – Ham and cheese and Asparagus Omelet, Dinner – Thanksgiving Dinner at Janis and Tom’s House
We slept in a bit and started cleaning the kitchen and then decided to cook breakfast around 10:00. I chopped ham and sliced slices of Beaufort cheese and de-stemmed six asparagus and sectioned them and Suzette made an omelet while I toasted french bread, smeared it with butter and Rose’s lime marmalade.
At noon I rode to Rio Bravo and back. It was pretty warm, at about 60 degrees put there was a heavy cloud cover on the mountains and you could tell a storm was coming. More interestingly, the birds could tell that a storm was coming. Geese and Sandhills cranes were flying into the middle of the large agricultural fields that bordered the bike trail and Second Street, perhaps to seek the safety of numbers in the middle of this large area with good lines of sight in all directions during the storm. Rather thrilling to see so much wildlife moving so purposefully in response to a natural event.
The Sandias socked in by a winter storm
After I returned home and had a shower and dressed for dinner, I prepared the pearl onions for Suzette’s green peas and pearl onion dish by boiling them for three minutes and then cutting the ends off, which liberated the coarse outer peel and left the tender inner peels intact.
Then we went to the garden and picked lettuce for the salad we were to make for dinner.
I fried bacon and Suzette hard boiled three eggs for the salad. I minced a shallot and immersed it in Balsamic vinegar and lemon juice, herbs Provence and chopped celery tops from the garden. Suzette cleaned the lettuce in a large bowl and the tore a head of romaine lettuce and the head of frisée she bought yesterday at the Coop and added it to the lettuce. I chopped up ½ cucumber and sliced Pecorino Romano cheese and put the ingredients into plastic containers. I finished the dressing by adding salt and pepper and Spanish olive oil and put the dressing in aplastic container.
I chilled a bottle of chateau de serrat and a bottle of Trimbach homage a Jeaune.
Suzette made a roux and the added milk to make a Béchamel sauce and added the frozen peas and onions to heat the ingredients in the sauce and viola, Creamed Peas and Pearl Onions.
We gathered up our food and drove the two blocks to Janis and Tom’s house at 3:00. Just as we arrived Herb and Diane Denish arrived and then Fred and Marg Harris. Janis had coordinated and orchestrated the meal beautifully. Marg made grilled sweet potatoes and beets and a lovely citrus salad on a bed of spinach. Diane brought the cranberry sauce made with fresh cranberries and a sour cream pecan pie and a pumpkin pie. And Janis made the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and gravy.
After we arrived and delivered all our dishes to the kitchen, Janis ushered us into the living room, where a table full of appetizers awaited us and served us Old Fashion cocktails. The best appetizer was a platter with leaves of fresh Belgium Endive with a dab of onion dip.
After about an hour of interesting conversation, Fred was U.S. Senator from Oklahoma and had lots of great Lyndon Johnson stories and Herb has been engaged in most of the major developments in Albuquerque over the last twenty years and Diane was Lieutenant Governor and now runs an education foundation, Janis and Tom had prepared the meal and we each went the kitchen and finished our dishes and arranged them on the table in the dining room and on the buffet.
We first served the roasted vegetables and creamed peas and onions on the buffet and then sat down at the table and passed our plates to serve the other items.
Everything was just as it should be. Janis had bought a butterball turkey and had brined it, so it was exceedingly tender. The dressing was moist and Janis made gravy in the style she described as Oklahoma style with sliced hard boiled eggs and turkey giblets and the neck meat, which reminded me of the gravy my mother made for Thanksgiving.
Suzette’s Green Peas and Onions was wonderful and both of Margaret’s dishes were wonderful. I had never had Julienned Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Beets before and I fell instantly in love with them.
We all cleaned our plates.
We first served the lovely bottle of J. Lohr 75th anniversary Pinot Blanc that Herb and Diane had bought at a Cancer benefit auction. It was light and fruity and delicious.
We next served the 2000 Trimbach "Hommage à Jeanne" Pinot Gris
93 points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2000 Pinot Gris Hommage a Jeanne was produced from a selection of Trimbach's best Pinot Gris parcels (all harvested at over 15% natural potential alcohol). It sports 25 grams per liter of dry extract and 20 grams per liter of residual sugar. While at most firms this wine would merit a Vendanges Tardives bottling, the Trimbachs chose to pay homage to Jeanne Trimbach, the mother of Bernard and Hubert, who turned 100 in May 2000 and continues to drink Alsace's lovely nectars to this day. This gorgeous wine has mineral and smoke-imbued white peach aromas. On the palate, it is medium to full-bodied, dense, and rich. Layer after layer of apricot, poached pear, white peach, and spices can be found in its highly expressive, velvety-textured personality. It is an intensely concentrated, wonderfully balanced, fresh, and structured wine. Drink it between 2005 and 2018. (12/2001), which had gone a long way toward sherry but still had good flavor and a vibrant character with the hint of fruit that is characteristic of Riesling. Finally we opened the 2010 Savennières-Coulée-de-Serrant, which was musty and undrinkable. Here is a little information on the wine:
The area allowed for Savennières AOC spreads over 3 hills of schist, located on the right (northwest) bank of the Loire river, totaling about 300 hectares (740 acres), situated in three communes: Savennières, Bouchemaine and La Possonnière. Of these, about 146 hectares (360 acres) are actually planted with vineyards.[2] Savennières-Roche-aux-Moines covers 33 hectares (82 acres) and Savennières-Coulée-de-Serrant covers 7 hectares (17 acres).[1]
We did not serve the Serrant. Instead, Janis opened a bottle of 2012 River Road Russian River Sonoma County Chardonnay, which everyone except Suzette and I drank and enjoyed. We finished our wine drinking with the last of the Trimbach Pinot Gris homage du Jeanne.
After the table was cleared Diane took orders for pie and Janis took orders for decaf coffee. Soon we had slices of pumpkin and buttermilk pecan pie and coffee and the conversation continued, mostly surrounding politics, both current and past.
The insights that the folks at the table had of current and past political events was breathtaking, especially since they were said with such nonchalance and candor that can only result from an eye witness participant.
Finally, around 7:45 Fred said it was time to go home and check on the chickens and we gathered up all of our things and said goodnight.
This was billed as an empty nesters’ Thanksgiving, but there was nothing lonely or remiss in the quality or quantity of the food, hospitality, or conversation. I count it as one of the best Thanksgivings in years, perhaps because we did not have to sweat in the kitchen for days and arrange the meal. We were able to easily prep our two dishes in a couple of hours and be guests and enjoy the meal and talking to the other guests without any pressure of cooking and serving the meal, which Janis and Tom did so graciously.
Bon Appetit
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