This year we've decided not to go to The Sardine Factory in Monterey, with me cooking on the weekend. I'll just be cooking tonight and tomorrow. At the request of @IdaRose and @TiffanyAnderson via Twitter, where I'm @JAdP, here's my menu and recipes. Nothing new really. I'm following my traditions of the past few years.
As always... Don't forget to preheat your oven(s) and simmering bricks.
Here's a "per bag" recipe.
A vegetarian version in a pan is what I'm making, as well as using it as the stuffing by mixing with mild sausage and stuffed into the bird. I use a mix of dried and fresh mushrooms, so the first step is to soak the dried ones [this year porcini and mixed wilds] for an half-hour in a 50/50 mix of white wine and warm water [never use stale water from the hot water tap for cooking]. The only fresh mushrooms I'm using this year are cremini and portabello.
Ok, ok, basically mashed potatoes with added rutabaga and turnip goodness, boiled with garlic and using a brown butter sage sauce as well as cream to get to the finished product.
Roasted and mashed, or sliced thin with a mandolin and layered with the custard, this is a must for Thanksgiving.
You could be roasting the sweet potatoes whilst the bread pudding is baking. You need three cups of mashed roasted sweet potato, so start with two 8-inchers.
Maybe not that traditional, but the best way to prepare those little green balls that I've ever found. I really do like this dish, though I can't remember where I found it. It's not a family tradition.
Or leave out the giblets if you're going for Tofurkey instead.
Take the pan drippings from cooking the turkey and separate off the fat. While that is settling, in a pat of butter and a splash of olive oil, sauté the minced shallots, diced up giblets, and sliced mushrooms [maybe reserved from the bread pudding, maybe not]. I reserved some of my minced wild mushrooms that I had soaked earlier - add those now. Remove from the pan. Add [per cup of finished gravy desired] a tablespoon of butter and allow to brown slightly, then add a tablespoon of flour, mixing into the butter until all the butter is absorbed. Keep scraping from rue from the bottom of the pan, until the flour is cooked - about 3 minutes. Add a glass of your white wine, slowly, mixing it into the flour, and then add a glass of the dried mushroom soaking liquor that you reserved, stirring it in. Cook down to the desired thickness - there should be a cup of gravy. Add a chiffonade of sage, and some thyme leaves.
Here's the basics: remove the fresh turkey from the brine that its been soaking in overnight, take enough of the Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding recipe [don't mix this more than an hour in advance of stuffing the bird] with added, broken up and cooked mild sausage, to fill the body and neck cavities of the bird, put peeled garlic cloves under the skin of the bird [usually takes at least one head of garlic], brush bird with a rosemary twig dipped in olive oil and herbs de Provence before putting in the oven and as the basting method, cook it as you normally would. Add white wine and maybe stock [vegie stock, white stock - chicken and veal - or turkey stock made from the neck] to the bottom of the pan. Get the skin nice and brown, and cover with aluminum foil to keep if from burning if it's browned before the turkey is done. If you do that, uncover the bird for the last 15 minutes of cooking.
Update: I've been using the term chiffonade. Let me explain. One can only chiffonade larger leaves: think basil, sage, mint. Wash and dry about eight leaves, and make a "cigar" out of them. That is, layer them by overlapping them about half-way along the long axis, and roll them up so they look something like stogies. Sharpen your knife, the sharper the better. Slice along the "cigar" cross-section, so that your getting very thin slices of herb.
Dad made an apple cake from the four types of apples growing in the back yard. I bought, yes, bought, a pumpkin pie. Earl is bringing Black Sambuca to serve with coffee. Stilton and crackers will also be served.
Have a great Thanksgiving. Enjoy.
I'll update as things change while I'm cooking.
I've been sending and receiving email "on the go" for well over five years. My solutions have always involved the PalmOS. I've never had to resort to a "redirector" from my desktop/laptop email client. There are a variety of approaches to mobile and wireless email. Daniel Taylor speaks to the solutions and ongoing problems in "Mobile e-mail solutions for small business".
Small businesses often have the edge here over large and even medium sized businesses. They can control the email service they use. Businesses that rely solely on using a Microsoft Exchange Server, or other proprietary collaboration server such as Lotus Notes, with that server located behind a firewall face the toughest challenge. The email services can be set up so that the proprietary collaboration server is only part of the package, with the standard protocols SMTP, POP3 and IMAP4 being part of the mix as well.
The first mobile email I had was way back in 1994 [pre-Palm] at Oracle using either Oracle Office Disconnected Client or Oracle Mobile Agents. Oralce's Collaboration Suite still serves up fully synchronized email to a wide variety of devices.
Synchronization for "casually connected" clients is also one, albeit asynchronous, solution, and even the earliest Palm software allowed synch'g your inbox, read, respond and compose offline, and synch again later. Not great if you want near "real time" information exchange.
The solution that I use now is the best I've ever had. In addition to our consulting services, we've started a hosting service, the TeleInterActive Networks. We provide IMAP4 email. This is great for multiple email clients from wireless connectivity to your favorite desktop email client, through in a laptop, and even webmail from a convenient Internet Café they are always synchronized through the IMAP server: inbox, sent email, even critical "saved" folders can all be sync'd. I can even get attachments and read them on my Palm.
Though this does get me back to a pet peeve of mine. Since email became the killer app for the Internet and is still the most used application, we've kludged everything possible onto it. eMail was never meant to send files and is not secure. Even today, email
There are far better collaboration tools than email. But I'm getting off topic. If you do want to use email wirelessly, take a look at the services that Dan cites to extend MS Exchange beyond the firewall. Or, consider a hosting service that will give you IMAP email with enough storage space to keep your current attachments to hand.
"Handhelds will Replace Laptops" and desktops, and clip boards, note pads, planners, sticky notes and more. This is a concept to which I subscribe whole heartedly. The question is what's an handheld?
Is an handheld a PDA, a smart phone, a Linux Slate, a Windows TabletPC, a wireless network appliance? What does the UI look like? How does one present information in a meaningful manner? What data visualization tools make sense on the available screen size? How do you deal with the casually connected state of most, if not all, wireless systems? I've been pursuing solutions to these questions since I first worked with Oracle Mobile Agents in 1994 using snail-slow wireless modems and greyscale handhelds that could be used for strength training.
Times have changed quite a bit, but I'm still amazed at how many people don't use - or want to use - an handheld of any type. Or at how many people, young professionals even, need to print something out before it becomes real to them. While many technical challenges have been solved, and while millions of folk use computers and handhelds and smart phones, there are still many challenges to be overcome, both technical and behavioral.
I agree with the following
"Now mobile users are just as hooked into corporate networks as their desk-bound brethren. Their data is as fresh and accurate and their response time is nearly comparable. Data in the field is no longer untimely or out-of-date; it is just as accurate as data available at the desk top."
and
"All these consequences, generated by wireless applications, will continue to squeeze inefficiencies out of operations."
-- Jim Chard in Handhelds will Replace Laptops
Though I would replace each "is" and "are" in that quote with "may". The statement could be true, but it rarely is. But I like the "will". Things are headed in that direction, the quicker the better. I'll be pushing all the way.
Dan Gillmor and I started a discussion in email back in 2000 about our various ways of staying connected when out of the office. Back then, I was using a PalmVx with a Novatel wireless modem and the Omnisky service. Now Dan talks about his ideal handheld in "Perfect Handheld? Not Yet".
I've always tended towards "best-of-breed" rather than accepting the compromises associated with squeezing everyhting into one box. This is true of Business Intelligence systems, integrating Open Source projects, stereo systems, even take out food [don't ask, don't tell]. It is especially true of my PDA.
I have a fierce brand loyalty to Palm [er, PalmOne, PalmSource, oh, yes, Palm is fine] and I'm very attached to open source.
I've been back-of-the-envelop designing a wireless network hub that would take care of that part of the system, until small-enough processors and wiki(software radio) catch up to each other in terms of specifications provided and required. OLED screens that can pull oull out of a rod like a scroll will make life better in this area too. I think I would rather carry a few small devices, than one clunky, compromised device. But ignoring packaging for a moment, here's a list of funtions, features and standards that I want with me all the time:
Several small devices easily distributed in various pockets would suit me just fine. I do want to get rid of the leather pouch I always have attached to my belt. Right now the leading contenders that could be mixed and matched to get some of these, if not all, are
If I had a convenient user interface, processing power, the OS and software and storage to do it all, the headset, the various connectivity capabilities, and Bluetooth tying it all together, I wouldn't need or want a "cell phone" per se. With what's available right now, it really is hard to put together a working system - and of course, coverage in CDMA, GSM or 802.11[whatever] is spotty at best, though iPass does have a good solution for worldwide accounts.
Finally, Palm has come out with a device that has both Bluetooth and WiFi, the LifeDrive. I'm very excited about this device. They also squeezed in a 4GB hard drive. Only 16MB of ROM though, so I imagine that not just "all your important files" but software must go onto that hard drive. I wonder how that will affect performace of those apps?
I may just have to find out via Amazon.
Update: From PalmOne LifeDrive Mobile Manager: Is it cool or too big for today's comsumer tastes? by Todd Ogasawara -- PalmOne's LifeDrive PDA is the first PDA I know of with an integrated microdrive (4GB large). It also has integrated Bluetooth and 802.11b WiFi capabilities. So, is the world ready with an open wallet for this intersection of a Palm PDA and iPod mini?
I'm a diehard Palm fan, and have been since my first Palm Pilot in 1996. Many of the points made by Todd Ogasawara are well taken. I do want to get rid of my cell phone, but I don't find the screens on smart phones, even the Treo, to be adequate. I think my ideal PDA would take from the Treo650. TungstenT-5, LifeDrive and Tapwave Zodiac: the large screen [with rotation between portrait and landscape modes], built-in WiFi [though give me a/g not just b], bluetooth and cellular [GSM or CDMA based options with latest data protocols], 256MB RAM/ROM, and two expansion card slots [either both SD/SDIO or one SD & one CF], and, of course, running the latest PalmOS. I don't really want the keyboard of the Treo; I've been using grafitti for so long that I my handwriting is now illegible.