Amy and Suzette worked out the menu for our Traditional Thanksgiving Family Dinner with little input from others because little input was needed. There was an agreed division of labor; Suzette and I would make Chef John’s Corn Pudding, oyster and pecan dressing, sweet potatoes with melted red chili marshmallows, an Italian Cloud cake with a vanilla pouring custard and pomegranate glaze, while Amy and Vahl agreed to roast the turkey and make cranberry compote, cornbread dressing, a Waldorf salad with romaine lettuce, diced apples and pear and walnuts with a poppy seed dressing prepared by Harry’ Road House and a store bought Key Lime Pie.
I brought three bottles of wine, a 2009 Londer Corby Vineyards Chardonnay, a 2009 Londer Corby Vineyards Pinot Noir, and a Gruet Brut champagne to be drunk with the Cloud Cake.
My only input was a request for oyster and pecan dressing which is one of my childhood favorites.
Valley loves key lime pie and he made the cranberry compote with a family recipe. He also is the master at cooking turkey, which is why we decided to eat our dinner at their house in Santa Fe. Vahl has a very easy and successful prep for turkey. He encases the turkey and the rack on which it sits inside brown paper bags, the kind they put groceries in at the supermarket that he has greased with butter or oil to keep the turkey skin and drippings from sticking to and bakes the turkey for 15 minutes per pound at 350 degrees.
November 24, 2016 Thanksgiving Dinner at Amy and Vahl’s
Other than that it was all Amy and Suzette’s prep and cooking with some help from me and Vahl.
The Londer Chardonnay was really lovely, clean and fruity without much oak flavor. I drank mine cold and others, closer to cool room temperature. The Pinot Noir was also incredibly clean tasting but lacked that lingering Pinot Noir after taste at the back of the throat that the great French Burgundies have. A small shortcoming when one is using it to wash down large amounts of food, but less than an optimum drinking experience. I recall the description by Rick Davis, who was Londer’s winemaker about how they came up with Londer’s famous Parabol Pinot. He said they had two wonderful Pinots, one with a very lovely fruit forward flavor and another with almost no fruit forward flavor but with a powerful finish, so they mixed them until they had a wine with both a fruit forward flavor and a powerful finish. I bet that the Corby Vineyards Pinot was the fruit forward part of that equation .
Perhaps that is how the French vintners make their great burgundies.
Most wineries buy most of their grapes from growers, so they are able to buy grapes from many different locales raised in many different ways.
Here is an article that describes this relationship between growers and wine makers in Oregon’s Pinot Noir country:
http://www.winemag.com/2016/10/17/five-oregon-vineyards-worth-knowing/
Bon Appetit
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