The Occasionist: And now for something Completely Different (i.e. Slightly Different)

Change was in the air this fall as we gathered together to discuss our Thanksgiving menu. We all agreed we needed to shake things up a bit: we were tired of making the same exact recipes year after year. My parents go to Santa Fe every fall and return home with incredibly flavorful chile powders and whole dried chiles from the farmers' market there. We are always struggling to find new uses for these flavors before the next round arrives. With all these chiles at our fingertips we decided that this year would be a showcase of New Mexican flavors, in other words a Southwest Thanksgiving. And of course everything would be different....

We sat down together to discuss the menu of new and different dishes we were going to prepare, only to find that every one of us had a dish (or two) that we apparently couldn't live without for our Thanksgiving feast. Personally, I couldn't give up the cranberry sauce my mom has made for years. My dad had to have the mashed potatoes. Gravy was a non-negotiable for my mom. Making something new and different was going to be harder than we had expected.

We came to the realization that it was our own traditionalist tendencies that kept us in a Thanksgiving "rut", and that really what was so wrong with that? If we cared so much about keeping particular dishes in the Thanksgiving canon, then we had better embrace our "rut".

Needless to say, we mostly altered traditional Thanksgiving dishes, giving them a twist instead of having something completely different. We had a lot of fun researching recipes and identifying "Southwestern" ingredients. We tried to incorporate the "three sisters": squash, corn and beans. These three grow well together because they help nourish one another, and they are a common combination in traditional Southwest Indian diets. We asked friends for their recipe suggestions, and even received in the mail a stack of New Mexican magazines with recipes from friends in Santa Fe. And, I think we all had a pretty good time arguing about what recipes could and couldn't change.

Ultimately, this was our Southwest Thanksgiving menu:

Nibbles before dinner:

Pecan-Chile Dip

Roasted Chile-Pumpkin Seed Salsa

Tortilla Chips

Fresh Vegetables

Hummus
Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

Olives

The dinner:

Butternut Squash Soup with Cayenne and Sauteed Mushrooms

Chile-Rubbed Turkey

Cornbread Dressing with Poblano Peppers and Chorizo Sausage

Mashed Potatoes with Chicos (smoked and dried corn kernels)

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cilantro-Lime Pesto

Gravy

Cranberry Sauce (the usual recipe with orange and walnuts)

Cranberry Sauce with Jalapeno and other earthy peppers

Pickled Red Onions

Desserts:

Pumpkin Pie

Pecan Pie

Ginger Ice Cream

Chocolate Chile Truffles

Caramel Popcorn

Chocolate Pecan Bark

Hors d'oeuvres

Soup

The bird

The spread: (Clockwise from top left) The Turkey, Cornbread Dressing, Cranberry Sauce, Pickled Onions, Roasted Chile Salsa, Brussels Sprouts, Mashed Potatoes.

My heaping plate

Desserts!

Chocolate Chile Truffles

Caramel Popcorn and Chocolate Pecan Bark

All gone....

Table decor included a mix of gourds and cactus pears with a sprinkling of paper cactus cocktail stirrers for good measure. I managed to ignore the whole "cactus" part of the cactus pears when I bought them. I picked each one up, rolled it over to check the color on all sides, and then stood in line to check out with them cradled in my arms. Do NOT follow my lead on this one! I had very uncomfortable invisible cactus spines in my hands for a few hours.

The cactus cocktail stirrers I bought in Chinatown, cut the wooden pick down to about an inch long, and stuck the ends into rounds of cucumber to stand them up straight on the table.

I'm thinking maybe we'll improve upon the Southwest theme next year. A few ideas for next time:

- Crumble the cornbread in the dressing in larger chunks

- Write out the menu on a board or mirror for guests to refer to

- Watch your hands on the prickly cactus pears