Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

The Anatomy of a Holiday Table Setting

THE LIFE STYLIST

Is there such a thing as giving too much thought and value to what your guests will be glancing at while they overindulge? For The Life Stylist, that answer is a pretty firm no.

Text and photography by David J. Witchell

img_1802The holidays begin for me well before even the first Black Friday ad. At that first breath of cool air, my mind starts racing with thoughts of entertaining. Elaborate table settings at holiday dinners are kind of my thing. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve gone around the table and sat in each chair to make sure everything looked right from every guest’s perspective.

These days, the settings are dedicated as much to the family and friends who gather around my dinner table as those who can’t, including my late brother James.

When I began plotting for this year’s round of dinners, my mind turned to a pair of artist-friends who share some of my obsession. Chuck Fischer is an established artist and author who recently launched a home collection comprised, in part, of fabrics, wallpaper and china. He’s also created the White House Historical Association’s Christmas card for four years running. Sherry Michelle is a fast-emerging visual artist who’s becoming best-known for her series of pop-surrealist paintings.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much promise a brainstorming session with them held. So I convened a roundtable—in September.

How early do you start planning your Thanksgiving dinner table?

Sherry It’s an ongoing process throughout the entire year. I always keep my eye open for little things that’d be cute. Once fall begins, I settle on a “color story” for the table and go from there.

What’s the most critical detail for you?

Chuck  The china collection I designed for Lenox, Mosaico D’Italia. With its terracotta, warm browns and soft greens, it’s a perfect fit. I’m also partial to low-cut flowers and candles of varying heights for the centerpiece.

Sherry  We have a long table, and the centerpieces always consist of multiple things in a row. I’m a stickler for symmetry. My mom’s special twist is to slip a scratch-off lottery ticket under everyone’s plates.

As much as I try to make these dinners new and unique from year to year, so much of the excitement that surrounds them stems from the nostalgia they evoke.

Chuck  I’m still motivated by the happy memories of my grandmother’s kitchen and the wonderful scents of the turkey roasting and the apples sautéing on the stove.

Do you leave your Thanksgiving setting in place and adapt it for Christmas?

Chuck  The day after, I put everything away except the flowers because I’m so eager to start decorating for Christmas. My tree’s usually up by that Saturday.

Sherry  That table serves too many functions to keep the setting in place. It’s where I work on my smaller commissions. And my son does his homework there. So nothing lasts past Thanksgiving night.

I find that picking a single color that lends itself to Thanksgiving and Christmas makes the transition from setting to setting a little easier. For Thanksgiving, I’ll play the bright oranges, yellows and coppers off of different-sized, red, hand-blown, glass-ball tea lights. Come Christmas, the tea lights will stay while the rest of the palette shifts to greens and white. Then for New Year’s Eve, I’ll start fresh and pair clear glass with silver and a hint of gold.

Easy as it is to lose myself in this stuff, it’s worth remembering that it’s the people at the table who create the memories, not the settings—even though they’re arranged really artfully.

David J. Witchell is the co-owner of David J. Witchell Salon & Spa, in Newtown and Lahaska, and The Boutiques at 25 South, in Newtown.

How to Not F*** Up Your Turkey

With the counsel of a few seasoned pros, we amp up the flavor (and the moistness) while also simplifying a notoriously overwrought recipe.

By Kendra Lee Thatcher

Thanksgiving 2002. My best friend, Lisa, introduces me to what will become my new holiday obsession. The evening is a perfectly orchestrated scene from Martha Stewart’s playbook. Summoned to the dinner table, we gather around the glistening turkey, a fire roaring behind us, Bruce Springsteen roaring over the fire.

Until tonight, I’d only known flavorless, white breast meat drowned in gluey gravy. With ninja-like swiftness and precision, Lisa grips a leg, rips it from the carcass, places it on my plate, then repeats the process and places the other on hers. Sisters in legs. Not really. I stare at mine for a good while, trying to figure out the best way (read: the least embarrassing way) to go about this. Finally, I look over at Lisa, who’s already polished off hers. No help there. Screw it. I pick it up and start gnawing away like I’m at Medieval Times. The skin, caramelized and crisp, seduces me at first bite. The dark meat’s so, so moist and laced with herbs, nutmeg and orange. This is what turkey’s supposed to taste like?! How did I make it into adulthood without realizing this?

Every year since, I’ve had dibs on the leg. It won’t be so clear-cut this year, though, because I’ll be playing the role of Lisa for the first time. Those legs aren’t naturally that moist, and nutmeg-y and citrus-y. Which means I’m in trouble. So I called around and asked a few friends who should know, flat-out, “How do I not f— up my turkey?” The following is the step-by-step plan I assembled from their advice and tested during a recent trial run.

Step 1: Buying
Convenient as those massive grocery store-birds are, shell out for a fresh, local, heritage turkey. They tend to be smaller and more manageable.

“The smaller the bird, the less time in the oven. The less time in the oven, the juicier the meat,” says Ian Knauer, who established The Farm Cooking School in Stockton, New Jersey.

I bought an 11-pound, Lancaster-raised turkey at None Such Farm Market in Buckingham. I had it quartered, based on the recommendations of Emily Peterson, the host of “Sharp + Hot” on Heritage Radio, and Matthew Martin, the owner/chef of More Than Q BBQ Company. The butcher broke down my bird into two breast-wing and leg-thigh segments, bones-in, skin-on and odds and ends packaged to make stock with.

Step 2: Prepping
Pour yourself a glass of wine. Proceed.

I’m a fan of adding fat under the skin. So when Ian reiterated this, I felt completely validated. I mashed up zesty-herb butter and massaged it into the meat. But I didn’t stop there. I then slathered the reserve fat from smoked bacon all over the skin and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Also: “Lightly trussing the quarters will ensure the skin stays on and the juices stay in,” Matthew says.

I mixed brandy, fresh orange juice and star anise to roast and baste the turkey in. I picked that little cocktail up from Diana Paterra, the owner/chef of DeAnna’s Restaurant and Bar in Lambertville, NJ, and now I’ll never use another.

Step 3: Roasting
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. In two large roasting pans, place a “veggie rack” comprised of carrots, parsnips, onions and citrus and cover it with a bed of herbs. Add your breasts to one pan and the legs to the other. Pour the brandy-OJ-star anise mixture evenly over both pans and then stick them, uncovered, in the oven.

Step 4: Timing
Never—seriously, nev-er—lose track of your bird. Roasting it hot and fast is the way to go, but it requires constant attention. It’ll take about 30 to 40 minutes for the turkey to turn golden brown, which seals in those juices that make so much of the difference between a remarkable turkey and a blah bird. (Note: The breasts will cook about 10 minutes faster than the legs.) At that point, pull the pans from the oven and brush the turkey with the drippings. I then reduced the heat to 375—my oven runs a little hot—and basted every 20 to 30 minutes for the next hour or so.

In an hour and 45 minutes, my turkey had hit the sweet spot—crispy on the outside, tender on the inside—so I slid it out and let it sit for another 45 minutes, as per Diana’s counsel. From there, I sliced it up with an extremely sharp knife, as per Emily’s counsel, arranged the pieces on a platter and drizzled them with the remnants of drippings.

I still reached for the leg out of instinct, but, really, there was no boring bite with this turkey. And that’s not to say that I’ve mastered Thanksgiving. The turkey, it turns out, is actually a very small piece of that headache. But, dismantling the intimidation was as critical as any step in this, ultimately, fairly simple recipe.