Day 1

Ok, so today had pretty much a full tuesday to fill. Had all these thoughts about being a sporty person. I wanted to go to the gym, swim 5k, run for 20 minutes. Anyone who knows me, would realize that I would get diverted. Diverted by what? Thoughts about food.



Basically, let me introduce myself, so you can get to know me too. I am a mother, first and foremost, lover of life, food, wine and all things to do with eating, tasting, creating and thinking about all things culinary. My background is Colombian, Italian, Eqyptian, Syrian. I grew up in Miami, Nassau, Bahamas and Lugano, Switzerland. That makes for an amazing combination of tastes!

Soooo, enough about me, let´s talk about food. This week is one of the most important for me, being Thanksgiving. I basically start to prepare well in the beginning of the month. Deciding the menu, planning the guest list, searching for the ingredients, and the most important part is going to "Aviram Maria Jose" in the Mercat de Sant Josep, a.k.a The Boqueria. (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I live in Barcelona now.) I have always loved thanksgiving, and probably even more now, because the majority of the people who come to my house for dinner, have only seen these types of celebrations on television and the movies. They're always talking about "Oooh, those turkeys, they're so big". Well, that is not something that I can accomplish here. See, europe, generally has small ovens (unless you're a millionaire). One year I had about 20 guests for my dinner. So I got a 21 lb. turkey. That is about a 10kg turkey, and my turkey lady gave me this look like I was absolutely nuts for wanting a turkey that large, and she also had a ridiculous time trying to find it. Anyhow, she found one, I proudly brought it home, stuffed it, covered it with butter and sage, and then tried to place it in the roaster. It didn't fit. So, my only option was to place it on the roasting pan that comes with the oven, haven taken all the other pans and racks out, on the bottom layer. Ok, so far so good, it kind of fit.....after I had placed tin foil over the top so as not to get the oven coil marks on the turkey.....

All was going well, until my friend who was helping me out while I took a shower, starting screaming like an Irish banshee! I rushed out of the shower, only to witness my oven in flames. Yes...the oven was completely on fire!!!! We tried pulling it out, only for the flames to start licking up towards the ceiling......minutes of madness when we grabbed some kitchen towels, wet them completely and started throwing them into the oven, to no avail. Finally, I rushed out into the hallway, towel and all, grabbed the fire extinguisher.....and well, I guess you can imagine what the turkey looked like.

Since that episode, I have always done two, or three turkeysdepending on the guest list. Turkey is great cold, warm, hot. Whatever. So on to this year. This year I have a list of epicurious guests. So, the menu had to be quite spectacular. And they also are highly doubtful that anything good can come from American cuisine. This is the part I love most. When I get to say......Told ya so.

So, my menu is as follows, some things borrowed from Martha Stewart (Spice Brine +butter + pumpkin pie) and some from the Williams Sonoma website, tweaked to my preference.

Menu :

Two Spice Brined Turkeys with Spice butter gravy
Challah and pancetta stuffing
Roast garlic mashed potatoes with cream cheese
Sweet potato roulade with spiced pecans
Black trumpet and porcini mushroom green beans with parmesan and crispy onions
Braised chestnuts and jerusalem artichokes with marsala cream sauce
Balsamic glazed pearl onions
Cream biscuits
Triple chocolate pumpkin pie
Cranberry upside down cake with sweet ginger whipped cream

So....this is my task for the next few days. Come back tomorrow and we'll take about the pies, and their crusts. And how much I am going to pay for cranberries in this country.
And pray that my oven doesn´t catch fire this year.
Check ya later!
C