Tonight is the night before Thanksgiving, Bonnie’s traditional Pie Night when she bakes 4 Thanksgiving desserts, including an apple and pumpkin pie, of course.
I can’t stop thinking about a year ago tonight, when she made her sweet creations in my new apartment for the first time. It’s an annual tradition that I look forward to every year, and it feels strange, almost surreal, not to be her sous chef instead of Laura right now.
For some reason, I keep thinking that the spirit of Jacob Marley and his Ghost of Thanksgiving Past (ok Christmas, I’m taking creative license) are going to appear tonight, just like they did to Ebenezer Schrooge in Charles Dickens’ novel. At first I attributed this thought to covid brain. Then I realized the Ghost appeared to Schrooge to help him relive past holidays, and learn that he has to change. That’s what 2020 is all about – change. The idea actually makes sense now.
So lets revisit Thanksgiving 2019 when Bonnie enthusiastically cooked much of the main gluten free meal on Thanksgiving Day – before we start talking about change in 2020.
Maybe you caught the gluten free (GF) part and are less than enthusiastic about the feast. But who says you can’t have a delicious gluten-free Thanksgiving meal? Gluten free food often gets a bad rap. Doesn’t taste good. Lacks flavor. Last year, Bonnie plowed ahead with her GF Thanksgiving concept, and never looked back.
She disproved all the naysayers by delivering such a flavorful meal that we didn’t even notice it was gluten free!
Thanksgiving 2019 tested Bonnie’s organizational and cooking skills on many levels like never before.
Did you ever try and put together an ambitious GF Thanksgiving dinner menu of 2 main courses, 10 side dishes, plus 4 desserts, for a total of 16 dishes – in a small, strange kitchen without the utensils or pots & pans that you need to make a meal?
How did Bonnie handle that? She showed up with her strategically packed red suitcase that functioned as a traveling kitchen cabinet – with a rolling pin, baster, spatula, pie tins, honey packets and a popover pan!
That was the challenge Bonnie took on in 2019 as she prepared her menu, shopped, and cooked in my downsized, ill-equipped apartment of less than 2 months. To top it off, Bonnie was used to cooking Thanksgiving dinner in a huge kitchen, on large counters, and in a double oven.
I confess to being antsy beforehand since I was having a hard time finding kitchen items and serving plates from previous years that I suspected were still in storage, but Bonnie was undaunted. She eagerly started planning the menu weeks before, I helped gather up her ingredients.
Along the way, Bonnie and I realized we were missing a few things, and that more boxes of kitchen items were in storage than we thought. After looking around and comparing notes, I made a quick trip to Bed Bath & Beyond for a potato masher and a few plastic mixing spoons (I melted the only large plastic spoon I had in the dishwasher….great way to make an impression on everyone in the building by smelling up the whole floor….). Then we had to retrieve the big soup pot and 2nd muffin tin from storage, with the rest of my kitchen. (As you can see, she threw a few other boxes on the cart to help me out.)
Bonnie summed it up by saying this wasn’t her most elegant meal prep effort. Certainly things didn’t go as smoothly as in previous years. But she did end up making all 16 planned recipes last year. Here goes:
Butternut Squash Soup
Lemon Herb Turkey
Stuffed Mushrooms
Her Signature Popovers (that didn’t pop as well this because Bonnie tried a different Bob Red Mill 3-in-1 GF flour…oops!)
Green Bean Casserole With Crispy Shallots
Sweet Potato Casserole
Brussel Sprouts with Grapes
Stuffin Muffins (GF and Regular – only gluten item on the menu)
Roasted Garlic Mashed Cauliflower
Goat Cheese Pears
Cranberry Sauce
Here are the three GF desserts:
Apple Pie from Against All Grain
Sour Cherry-Almond Pie from the Food Network Magazine
Pumpkin Pie (and this extraordinarily spicy version froze so well it lasted well into 2020!) from Bakerita
It was a fabulous, flavorful feast! Full disclosure: Bonnie made the gluten pumpkin pie in her own kitchen for her dad.
This year we are adapting our plans because of the pandemic. Bonnie is preparing the entire Thanksgiving Dinner in her Manhattan apartment for the first time. She and Laura are bringing dinner to me (masks and all, windows open) on Thanksgiving Day. After they return to Manhattan, we’ll eat dinner together on zoom, like so many people around the country in 2020.
During the week, Bonnie picked up my all my empty Pyrex containers and Mason jars. (Didn’t think to take photos.) The plan is to deliver them back to me filled with her delicious feast food tomorrow. And it will all be gluten free and dairy free so I can eat everything. Am I lucky! I’m salivating just thinking about what awaits me tomorrow.
Now it’s after midnight and I just spoke to Bonnie. She finished the 3 gluten free pies with Laura’s help, and they decided to bring the finished desserts in tact tomorrow. We’ll have the dessert table unveiling (I better move my paintings off the buffet before they come!) like we did last year only with masks, and cut them together. I’ll get my share, and Bonnie and Laura will take the remnants back, if I leave them anything…. With 3 pies, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Thanksgiving 2019 seems like an eternity ago. When I thought about it last week, it felt rather ethereal and unsubstantial, like it was a ghostly dream. But after looking at all these photos, the entire fantastic eating experience is coming back to me. And I remember how Bonnie certainly debunked the gluten-free myths about Thanksgiving. I’m sure she’ll do the same this year.
It’s an understatement to say I’m eagerly awaiting the delectable food Bonnie and Laura are bringing tomorrow. In preparation, I started setting the dining room table that has my first Thanksgiving Ikebana spreading arrangement on it (my new obsession, more on that another time).
The familiarity of the tradition kicked in, and my mood shifted into full celebration mode and gratitude, a welcome change of pace.
And to think I’ll have a hiatus from cooking, with lots of leftovers.
Now it feels like the Thanksgiving holiday we all know and love. To Jacob Marley and your Ghost, I say, “Stay home!” I got the message. It’s time to enjoy ourselves in the present moment, and embrace our family motto, “Let’s Get Stuffed”.
