Thanksgiving Recipe: Candied Yams

So, I completely thought the whole "sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top" was an American thing, until I served it at an "orphan's" Thanksgiving dinner one year. As in, all red-blooded 'Muricans ate it at Thanksgiving. Apparently not. It's a Southern/Midwestern thing. And the rest of the country is seriously missing out, I say.

This is my Mama's recipe, and I print it as she gave it to me. This is one of those recipes that you kind of have to do by feel but, honestly, you smother it in melted marshmallows. How could you really mess it up?

Mama's Candied Yams (aka Sweet Potato Casserole)


1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2.) Drain and mash 2 big cans sweet potatoes
3.) Mix in well:
1 egg
Dash of salt
Pinch of cloves
Some cinnamon (I heart this ingredient. Precise, no?)
Brown sugar to make it sweet (This is even more precise!)
A few chunks of butter
Handful of mini marshmallows (you'll need more for topping)
4.) Spread into a pan and cook until heated through, about 30-45 minutes.
5.) Remove from oven, and cover with mini marshmallows. Return to oven until the top marshmallows are ’melty’ (exact phrase ala Mama) and browned.

Thanksgiving Approaches

I was making plans for a project at work today, when I suddenly realized that Thanksgiving was just a couple of weeks away. I plan to take off the whole week (which does throw a wrench into things at work, but whatever).

I love cooking and I love feeding people, so Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday of the year. I start cooking on Monday night, and pretty much cook straight through until the end of the day Thursday. Funny thing is, we tend to eat a lot of pizza that week, because after spending all day in the kitchen getting ready for the big meal, I don't have the energy to cook dinner.

Every year, I say I'm not doing it...that I'll go have dinner at one of the fancy hotels in San Francisco. And every year, my daughter gives me her sad eyes and says, "But you're not cooking?!" and every year, I do. (Who can resist a child who loves their mom's cooking? No one with a heart, that's who.) I also say I'll just keep it simple, and then end up inviting someone for every seat at the table. My friend Shawn is always here, and the others rotate. This year, a couple who are some of my closest friends will be here, and they're bringing a coworker who's just moved down from Canada and would otherwise be alone. The more the merrier, I say. I cook too much, anyway.

Some of my favorite yearly traditions are based around Thanksgiving, and I look forward to the days of preparation preceding the meal almost as much as I do the meal itself. I'll cook while the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special plays in the background, and we'll watch the parade that morning while I get everything ready. We always watch the dog show, too, and of course, play games. Then we all pass out from the infamous turkey sleep drug, while cursing ourselves for eating too much.

And I have to admit, I can't wait.

I don't have anything formal or special planned for the blog in the days leading up to the holiday. I'll be showing off a few of my favorite recipes, and talking a lot about the menu and preparation, I'm sure.

If you want to read a real, proper "Countdown to Thanksgiving", check out Home Ec 101. (And if domesticity is one of your things, you should have this site bookmarked. For reals.) Heather threw a huge pre-Thanksgiving turkey dinner for 20 in order to bring us daily tips and near-daily recipes leading up to Thanksgiving. I've actually used some of her daily reminders to help me get ready this year, and I highly recommend it.

Restaurant Review: Good Karma

I'm in San Jose, visiting my adorable friend Risey, who's house-sitting down here this weekend. I don't visit downtown San Jose that often; didn't even visit that often when I lived here. But I have to admit, it's clean and nice and most importantly, it has this:

Yes, you read that right: Good Karma Vegan Cafe.

As you may or may not know, I eat mostly vegetarian, avoiding animal products and dairy. I don't freak out about a little egg in my gluten-free bread (trying to avoid that, too) or a little honey, but I feel better since I've started eating this way, so there you go.

Risey discovered this place a couple of weeks ago, when our meat-eating friends took her here for lunch. They were impressed enough with it to consider going veg themselves, so that was good enough for me. We popped by for lunch today.

It's super casual and comfortable inside, papered with the expected flurry of liberal pamphlets and hipster club advertisements, with another hipster behind the counter. The food is kept cold in a deli case, and their dishes rotate daily. There's no menu, just hand-written cards on the containers. You choose two to three dishes, and they're piled on a plate with some mixed veggies and some brown rice, then nuked in the microwave.

Yes, the microwave.

And you know what? It's delicious. So, suck it haters.

I went the faux-meat route, above. I had ginger "beef" with portabello mushrooms, barbecue "chicken" (on a little stick to make it look like a chicken leg), mashed potatoes, rice and broccoli.

Risey also had the "chicken leg" and potatoes, but chose dahl as her third dish. It's an Indian lentil-based dish.

After dinner I had this:

Rocky Road pie!!! How do they get pie so creamy and mousse-like without eggs or dairy? No idea, but it was awesome. In fact, the pie was so awesome that two San Jose bicycle cops, who I doubt very much were vegan, were in having pie when we were there. One of them and I had this very mature exchange, while I dithered about which pie to get:

Cop: Oh, GAWD. Just get the plain pie!

Me: But...that one's Rocky Road!

Cop: So?!

Me: SO!

Yes, that conversation was as moronic as it sounded. Anyhoo, I got the Rocky Road, and it was awesome. The End.

All in all, I loved Good Karma, and will now visit my friends in San Jose more often, just to get to eat here. Get ready, guys.

And here, as a special treat, is beautiful Risey:

Party Meatballs

These meatballs are one of those dishes I'm "known" for, which I find hysterical in that "Isn't it Ironic?" sort of way. (Thanks, Alanis.) Because, I really do love to cook and I'm really good at it, and I cook some amazing, elegant things.

These meatballs are not one of those things.

For starters, I don't even make the meatballs. I start with frozen. Oh, sure, I could slave away over a hot stove frying lots of little balls of ground-up animals (oops, my vegetarian is showing - sorry), but why bother?

Why bother, indeed, because the heart of these meatballs is that rich, tangy, barbecue-y sauce. A rich, tangy, barbecue-y sauce that's made out of ... wait for it...

Grape jelly and chili sauce.

No, I'm not even kidding. You dump a jar of chili sauce and a jar of grape jelly over your frozen meatballs in a crockpot and turn it on. A couple of hours later, you have meatballs that your normally-loveable geeky guy friends will literally fight each other over, like snarling, rabid, yet loveable dogs.

I've been making this for probably close to twenty years (for serious), and I've never once had them be anything but a rip-roaring success. A standard size bag of meatballs feeds a crowd as appetizers, though on occasion I have doubled up to serve a really huge party. They are really popular, so better to have too many. (At my last party, some of the guys had huge platefuls of them - it was basically their dinner.) If there are leftovers, you can put them on grilled buns for cool meatball sandwiches.

I have found it's best not to tell people what's in them until after they've had one ... because then they won't care.

Here's the "recipe".

Party Meatballs

One bag of frozen meatballs (around 50-60 meatballs) - plain or Italian style (your choice)

One 120z. bottle of Heinz chili sauce*

One 15oz (or so...regular size) jar of grape jelly

Pour the frozen meatballs into your crockpot. Don't even bother to thaw them. Pour over the whole jar of chili sauce, followed by the whole jar of grape jelly. I like to smoosh them around with a wooden spoon to "combine" here, mostly because it's nice to feel involved. They won't really combine until they melt, though.

Turn the crockpot on low, and cook for 1-2 hours until the meatballs are heated through and the sauce is combined. You'll want to stir them once or twice to help them along and make sure they're all evenly coated with sauce.

The meatballs will keep on warm for a couple of hours, at least.

Note: Can you make this on the stovetop? Sure. I'd just get a dutch oven, put the ingredients in and heat them up on as low a setting as my stove would go. The crockpot works better, I think, because you can make them before people arrive, then just keep them warm for folks to serve themselves.

*Chili sauce is in a glass jar near the ketchup and such. It looks like this:

Where's Foo Gone?

If I appear to have dropped off the face of the Earth, here's the culprit.

It's called Dragon Age: Origins, and I would declare it a giant timesuck if I were not so mesmerized by it.

Honestly, to call this a video game is kind of doing it a disservice. It's a fantastical movie, and you happen to be in the middle of it. Truly, at one point I had tears in my eyes at a plot point, and I'm only a few hours in.

This game has everything: love, betrayal, honor, violence, death and yes, even sex.

That's right. You can flirt with, woo, and finally, bed one of your NPC (non-Player Character, for you non-gamers out there) party members. I am currently working hard on a cocky young knight named Alistair.

This game has all the right video game moves: great graphics, realistic-looking monsters, good combat tactics and lots of blood.

But so far, I'm loving the storyline; it's very rich and nuanced, and even at this early stage I'm seeing patterns that - as a writer - I'm rather impressed with. The characters I've run into so far have also been fairly richly written. (My knight, for instance, is definitely sarcastic and flip, but he's also loyal and kind and somewhat unsure of himself. It's hard to write a character who's that nuanced in general, and I think it's especially difficult in a video game. It's certainly unusual for the genre.)

Altogether, I'm loving this game. Which means you probably won't see me until I emerge a few weeks from now, grimy and bleary-eyed and married to Alistair.

Sorry about that.

To see what it's all about, watch the videos. I highly recommend the one that loads when you land on the page, and the one titled Sacred Ashes. (They have some of the same footage, but the last one is worth watching. When J saw it, he turned to me, wide-eyed, and said, "I would watch that movie!")

Restaurant Gary Danko

As I mentioned, my friends took me to dinner at Gary Danko for my 40th birthday. GD is one of the best, if not the best, restaurants in all of San Francisco, and after eating there, I can tell you this:

This was the best meal of my life. And I've eaten some good meals.

First of all, the atmosphere and service are nearly perfect. They knew exactly who we were and where we were at all times. They offered us drinks at the bar, and gave us little linen napkins and basically just made sure we were taken care of. The thing was, though, that even though the service was top-notch, it was very warm and friendly. You felt very welcome and very at ease. Our guys were even in jeans and no one so much as batted an eyelash. (I've been to other restaurants in the city where they looked down on me until I bought the expensive wine - then I was great!)

The other cool thing about GD is the menu. Basically, you choose the amount of courses you want - three, four or five - and they do have a tasting menu. What's cool, though, is that you can choose any type of course you want. If you want five meat courses or five desserts, they're fine with that - they just adjust the portions to match whatever course you're on.

Therefore, I ended up choosing mostly appetizers, which were more vegetarian-friendly. They also had a great vegetarian menu. I chose the five-course meal (it was my birthday, after all).

Here's what I had that night:

Fig salad with fennel

These figs were perfectly ripe, and just bite-sized. They were served on a bed of very thinly sliced fennel and red cabbage, and under there somewhere was a delicious, crispy crouton of some sort of brown bread. The whole thing was covered with a delectable balsamic reduction.

This was my friend Jason's appetizer - the crab salad.

Crispy egg with white polenta

This was without a doubt my favorite course of the night. That, people, is an egg. Yes, an egg. And not just any egg, but a perfectly poached, organically raised farm egg coated in a crispy panko crust. It's sitting on top of white polenta that were better than any grits I'd ever had. There were lots of other interesting bits in there - chanterelle mushrooms and green beans and some sort of rich sauce.

I have had dreams of this egg since. Unbelievable.

Risotto with butternut squash and chanterelles

My main dish was a beautiful risotto. It was well done, with just a bit of bite. The orange bits are actually butternut squash, and there's chanterelles and peas in there as well. You can barely discern a sheer green oil around it - that's thyme oil.

Cheese course

Gary Danko is famous for his cheese cart, and it did not disappoint. They roll out this enormous, marble-topped cart and you get to pick three or four. Since it was my birthday, I got five. Clockwise from the bread, I got: a triple creme Brillat Savarin; a manchego; a gruyere from a small purveyor in Switzerland; a Taleggio and GD's famous Roaring 40s bleu.

First, let me say, these people know how to treat and serve cheese. The Brillat Savarin was perfect, and the Taleggio was so ripe it was almost oozing. The gruyere was, honestly, the best cheese I've had in my life - and not just because I'm partial to Swiss cheese. It was nutty and tangy and had almost a cheddary feel to it. Just perfect. I wasn't as thrilled with the Manchego, but Manchego is hard to do well. And I liked the Roaring 40s bleu, until I tasted my friend Shawn's Buttermilk Blue. Unreal. Almost as good as the Swiss - but not quite.

Chocolate souffle with two sauces

I chose Gary Danko's signature dessert: a perfect, fluffy chocolate souffle. They poked a hole in it at the table and poured in chocolate fudge sauce and a vanilla creme anglaise. They also brought me the little lemon mousse dessert in back for my birthday. It came on a plate with Happy Birthday piped in chocolate, and had the fancy candle in it. It was delish; maybe even better than my souffle.

Finally, because we hadn't stuffed ourselves enough apparently, they brought us out a small tray of petit fours with our coffee (note the artistic photo of the coffee service). I only had one of the jellies, because I was fit to burst, but it was awesome.

To top it all off, they sent Marise and I home with one of these:

It was apparently a banana bread with banana cream filling. It was meant for our breakfast, but I was too overwhelmed by the dinner and a weekend of partying to be able to eat it, even on Sunday. I gave it to Jay, who said it was awesome.

All in all, really the best restaurant experience I've ever had, from the food, to the service to the atmosphere. They even had a cab waiting for me when I walked out the door.

And to be honest, for the amount of food that you get and the choices you're given, the price is very reasonable. So if you can get reservations, I recommend you go at least once. It really is the best restaurant in San Francisco.

It's NaNoWriMo Time!

National Novel Writing Month is here!

For those who don't know NaNo, the name pretty much says it all: you write a novel this month. Specifically, you write 50,000 words of a novel this month. It comes down to about 1,700 words a day.

To win, you hit 50,000. That's it. No judging. No competing. Just get to 50K.

I've won the last two years in a row. What I love about NaNo is it takes away my inhibition. I don't worry so much about how crappy it sounds, because the point is just to get it on paper, to finish. I can clean it up later. It frees you up to actually write. In fact, I've found that my other writing got a lot better - even at work - after I NaNo'd, because I began treating first drafts as just that: a draft.

Since I know several new NaNo'ers this year, I thought I'd reprint some of the advice I've gleaned from the last two years:

1.) Write every day. Even if you can't get the 1666 words or whatever that you should be writing, do a little bit.

2.) Try not to fall too far behind. You'll definitely get bursts of energy where you write a lot in one day, but use those as "buffer" for when you get a low day. Don't count on them.

3.) Don't reread your previous pages! Yes, they do suck. Just keep going.

4.) If your story goes somewhere you didn't expect it to, let it. In my first year, I got about halfway through and almost stopped, because a minor character was becoming more important than the main character. Clearly, that was broken. My officemate said, "Maybe that's exactly what's supposed to happen", and so I kept going. And you know what? He was right.

5.) Don't be afraid to drop something. I didn't do this as much last year because I had an outline, but the first year I worked without an outline. A couple of times I found myself in a plotline that I just didn't like or that wasn't working for whatever reason. I just dropped the thread and picked up a new one. Remember, the goal is to get to 50K and get a draft that you can work with later, so if something's not working, don't start over. Just drop it and move forward.

Today's the first day of NaNo, so if you've always wanted to do it, just jump in! The water's great. Remember, it's about the process, so just see where your story takes you. I know I am...