Dear Hearts,
If you are an American, probably you have begun your holiday
cooking or have begun to worry about your holiday cooking. Thanksgiving is at
our throats.
As a young girl I watched my relations–mostly my female
relations–confront this time of year with various blends of joy, loathing,
cunning, subterfuge, skill, and daring.
My maternal grandmother, who is said to have come into the
world clutching a wooden spoon, spent eleven months of the year with one eye on
November. She adored food and cooking. Her Thanksgiving dinner–prepared in deep
secrecy and served with great ceremony–was greeted by the family in much the
same way that le tout Paris once greeted
dear Christian Dior’s spring collections. Applause, followed by mass
consumption. And she, like dear Monsieur Dior, poured her soul into everything
she created.
I loved her dinners very much.
My paternal grandmother believed that cooking was a
nerve-wracking and potentially lethal activity best left to trained
professionals. She considered her Thanksgiving duty complete after she had
telephoned the maître d’ of her favorite hotel and secured our usual private dining
room. She took care to make sure my grandfather
would be served oysters and my abstemious Aunt Adelaide would not be served
brandy. For me, she always ordered a small bonbonnière of petit fours in lieu of pumpkin pie.
I loved her dinners very much.
My own mother, who kept house in a bewildering variety of
situations from a beach hut in American Samoa to a penthouse in Seattle, fell between
these extremes. She believed that a person should be able to feed herself, and
know how to be hospitable. Whatever you put before a guest–from a humble cup
of tea to a flaming French dessert–you must know how to make it clear this was
being given with open hands, gladly. And
your tea had better be good tea.
The subject of dinners and dining has been very much alive
around the studio lately.
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee–known to thousands of knitters as the
Yarn Harlot–asked me whether I might do up a little something as an appetizer
for the dinner at her
Strung Along Retreat.
I need not tell you I was delighted to oblige, and dear Stephanie sent
along these photographs of our special Strung Along colorway, plated and
presented in a way that my grandmothers would have approved.
And our friends at Jimmy Beans Wool asked for a contribution
to the 2014 edition of their
Fit for a Feast program. Have you heard of this?
Here is what happens, in a nutshell.
Jimmy Beans invites a coterie of their favorite (I blush)
dyers to contribute courses (complete with recipes) to a holiday collection of
yarns, produced in limited quantities specially for the feast. To allow for differing appetites (and
budgets), there are various ways to partake, from the Full Feast (a generous
helping from the entire groaning board) to A Bite of Everything (a sampler of nibbles).
It’s a large table, with seats for all.
You will find the delicious details
here.
I was chatting about this with my teacher, Swapna, after a
sitar lesson and told her I’d chosen to contribute
the relish tray.
She shook her head.
“Are you nuts?” she said. “Who wants to make the relish
tray? What kind of a recipe is that? Why not offer to make the stuffing?
Everyone loves the stuffing. Or the pies.”
I must admit I could see her point. The relish tray is
seldom anyone’s favorite part of the meal. Even my mother’s mother prepared one
mostly out of habit, peeling and cutting and organizing for the better part of
an hour. My grandfather would eat one green olive and a stick of celery, and
the rest eventually would come to rest in soups or sauces.
But I like the relish tray.
As it has such a low profile, one may experiment boldly
without inviting the avalanche of objections that come from putting Brazil nuts
instead of pistachios into dearest great-great-grandmama’s prize-winning turkey
dressing.
So do experiment! Don’t
undertake it by rote, doing what has always been done without asking why. Change,
push, mix and re-mix. Remember the oft-forgot role of this dish: to give the
guests a brief respite from the succulent, the savory, and the lavish.
Gather sharp, bright, clear flavors. Seek out small bites
that snap and tingle. Embrace novelty. Has your market come into a supply of
heirloom carrots in unfamiliar colors? Small fruits and vegetables from afar
that quicken the palate? Let them keep company with the celery and the olives,
which will taste the better for it.
Use the relish tray to wake up your loved ones and prepare
them for the next adventure.
That is what I do, dear hearts. That is my life’s goal. What
dish, I ask you, could possibly suit me more?
Yours with Relish,
Mrs. Crosby
Lisbon, Portugal
