Outside our front door
After nearly 6 months of sunsets in Colorado I remain in awe of our almost daily pyrotechnics over the mountains and just outside our door.
On my way to pick Juliet up from work yesterday I was greeted with sky bowls full of orange sherbet and fiery lemon light over the front range.
With the below 10 degree weather and snow coming tomorrow we are making the most of our final days of tolerable weather in this stunning state of beauty.
Enjoy a few photos :-)
Thanksgiving - PostscriptIt all began so well....
I went hardcore on the prep, the products, and the passion. The execution was a bit off the mark.
This bad boy turkey was dry like the Sahara and I was crushed. Look how awesome it appeared:
Yet it was a #Fail. My instant read was right and I followed the recipe to the letter. As it turned out and upon further research this Heritage bird should have been cooked more like duck and to a lesser temp than a standard turk.
I also discovered at 11:15 that night that I had a 101 degree fever and had likely been delirious most of the day. Neither my wife nor my guests have fallen ill and it may have indeed been stress combined with a little bug from the nasty gym germs.
Nevertheless, some things were good. Some things sucked ass: See gluten-free dressing in my shot below next to the very good wine:
At the end of it all, I am not near the TG cook that my Mom or Grandmothers taught me to be. I went too far outside the lines of tradition and paid a price.
My pumpkin pie was OK, but Odie's crushes it like Berkman crushes the hopes of Texas Ranger fans.
I will say this; my wife makes some bad-ass fruit salad. It kept me smiling and regular even in the wake of too much brown food and my dry-ass turkey.
Juliet is also the master of the centerpiece. Here she has used Fall leaves harvested from local neighborhood trees, small pumpkins, a persimmon that was not ripe enough to eat, and a giant yellow squash from our friends' garden in Colorado
Now my cheese plate, decadent deviled-eggs and wild boar salumi were a big hit and belied the dryness to come.
Of course our friends brought this killer bottle of vino from our amazing time in Tuscany last summer. Fun shot to finish the post and cheers to all of you!
I promise I will get better and I will conquer Turkey Day...someday (sigh)
For the first time in 40 Thanksgivings I will be the primary cook for the great American Feast. My grandmothers, mom, and step-mom have been at the helm for my entire life. Now that we are in Colorado and hosting our first TG, I am charged with preparing the meal (along with enormous assistance from the lovely Juliet).
A few times in the late 90s I did the turkey and in 2005 I made a 15 pound pan of Mac and Cheese for my only San Francisco Thanksgiving. (wound up hammered and singing Hank Jr on that occasion). However, this is my first go at the whole menu.
Of course, as I tend to do in my everyday cooking life, I take the best of what I learned from our great family traditions and meld them with my Italian tendencies and need to be "different".
My mother and step-father as well as some dear friends here in Colorado have graciously accepted to be guinea pigs for my first foray into the grand American feast. As you will see in my first course, tradition stands side-by-side with my travels and tastes.
If you happen to be in Colorado tomorrow, come see us and eat!
Hard Cheddar - Vermont
Farmstead Cow's Milk Cheese - New Hampshire
Carboncino - Soft Cheese with charcoal rind - Piedmont, Italy
Saint Andre - Triple Cream Cheese - France
Creminelli Wild Boar Salumi - Utah
Tres Petits Cochons (three little pigs) - Mousse Truffee (truffle, pork and chicken liver Pate')
3 types of olives (lemon Stuffed, Cerignola Nera, and Castelvetrano from Sicily)
Cornichons
Hand Rolled Deviled Eggs with Dijon Cream
Salads
Toasted Walnut and Butter Lettuce with French Feta and Walnut Oil Vinaigrette
Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit with Kiwi, Blueberry, Anjou Pear and Persimmon
The Feast
Roasted Mary's Heritage Free Range and Organic Turkey (herb salt dry brined for 24 hours then barded with dry-rubbed bacon and butter-glazed)
Odie's cornbread dressing with sage pork sausage(my take on Tradition)
Russet Potato and Celery Root Puree'
Turnip and Pork Loin Hash
Caramelized Sweet Potatoes in the style of Singapore
Collards and Chard braised with onions, guanciale, and chicken stock
Turkey Giblet and Mushroom Gravy
Cranberry Chutney Negroni Style
Rhodes Slow Rising White Rolls and Salted Butter
Desserts
Ellis County Texas Pecan Pie
Posh Bakery Lattice Apple Pie and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Odie's Pumpkin Pie
Fresh Whipped Cream with Mexican Vanilla
I Vini - The Wines
2010 Commaderie de la Bergemone Rose' Coteaux d'Aix en Provence
2004 Koehler Ruprecht Riesling Kallstadter Steinacker Kabinett
2005 Hexamer Riesling Meddersheimer Rheingrafenberg Spatlese * (thanks to Sean Beck)
2010 Sottimano Mate' Brachetto (still and dry)
2005 Terralsole Brunello di Montalcino (from our guests)
2005 Clarendon Hills Grenache Hickinbotham
2005 Taylor Fladgate LBV Porto
Amaro e Grappa
Happy Thanksgiving to All Blissful Adventurers!
Much Love,
Michael and Juliet
Tonight, Juliet and I along with our great friend Ned are doing Boulder and the amazing Frasca. As many of you who follow food know, Frasca is one of the finest Italian restaurants in America, and the wine list is fascinating like a dinner party that includes Abe Lincoln, Richard Pryor, and Bill Shakespeare.
This evening commemorates 1 year since we first visited Boulder and enjoyed this world-class dining experience.
The talented Jeremy Parzen wrote a lovely post on Frasca a few months back and his article inspired us to make this dinner happen. Hopefully Frasca will become an annual dining tradition.
Here is a link to Jeremy's Post and below are some of my photos from last year's amazing dinner. Special thanks indeed to BJS for donating the bottle of Conterno to our dining cause!
Stay tuned next week for our report from this year's event!
No, I am not talking about myself (this time). I am referring to a renaissance man and one of my very best friends Loren J Root. I met Loren on my first day of a new job in San Francisco in 2004. I noticed Loren immediately as he was in strikingly good shape, seemed confident and calm (traits I did not possess at all at the time), and his shoes were much cooler than anything I would have seen in Austin only a week earlier. What I did not know about Loren at the time and have come to learn over the years is that the man is incredibly talented and one of the fastest learners I have ever met.
In our 7 years of friendship we have counted (and tasted) some of the finest bottles of wine on earth, traveled all over the USA in search of great food and great company, and even both sat in a Fiat 500 just outside of Panzano in Chianti laughing at the lack of space while still enjoying the great fortune of hanging out in Italia; even if Katy Perry never stopped playing on the radio.
Loren and I have worked together on numerous projects and at times he was cussed out by his boss and at times I cussed out mine. In 2005 Loren hosted Thanksgiving dinner at his home in SF and it was simply one of the most fun holidays I have ever had. Never will there be another rendition of Country boy can Survive quite like that one and I look forward to our meals and time in the kitchen as much as any social gatherings in my life.
Why is this a blog post today? Because Loren is now doing some incredible work behind the camera and I want the world to hire him. Loren is the only person in my life that I can be certain without a doubt, that if he agrees to take on a project it will always, and I mean always, exceed my expectations.
I want to share a couple of links with you to Loren's work and if you have the need for a photographer for any occasion and want world-class work with a very particular artistic vision of your goals, then Loren J Root is your man. Of course if you need your wine cellar organized and your collection managed or you would like to prepare a fresh seafood dinner in your home for 8 discerning friends Loren can manage all of these as well. This guy has talent and he will share it with you because bringing joy to people's lives is what keeps him learning.
Cheers to creativity and following the path my friends!
Loren's Company Page - Glass Roots Concepts Loren's Flickr Page Follow Loren on Twitter @theleftoverchef