As I sip on my coffee, which is nearly as pale as I am with half and half, and think back on last night's dinner at six burner (crabcakes finished in mustard butter), Secco's menu testing Sunday night (sneak peek on the blog: http://rivercitycellars.blogspot.com/) and the more than ONE HUNDRED POUNDS OF CHEESE I eat annually (no really, I did the math), I'm actually feeling pretty guilty that my cholesterol is so laughably low. It must all have been training for Thanksgiving.

This year was the first year I cooked. It may be the last--not because my 1949 electric oven refused to hold anything between 300-400 degrees, or that my 10x10 kitchen is not conducive to advanced bartending while preparing a five course meal alone--but because my dad walked in on me cooking one too many times. He knows the truth, and it's not pretty. Maybe I'm still a teenager, and parental shock value is still a measure of my worth. But now instead of breaking & entering or hitchhiking to NYC, I challenge my dad's healthy lifestyle.

The menu...

Apps:
Frico (baked piave wafers)
Endive with gorganzola, walnuts and apples
Mini toasts with dips (truffled goat cheese/pureed oil cured sundried tomatoes/onion confit)
Roasted Chestnuts with peppered honey

Soup:
Roasted butternut squash with Piment d'Espelette spiced seeds

Salad/Sides:
Arugula with shaved parm and verjus vinaigrette
Herbed shitake stuffing
Roasted sweet potatoes with confit fried skins
and brown butter vinaigrette

Main:
Pancetta-Sage Turkey/Gravy

Dessert:
pumpkin creme brulee (fired with my new TORCH!!!)

Cocktail: Lexington Avenue (rye, cider, Canton ginger, lemon)

Wines:
German Gilbert Cava
Tissot Arbois
Crivelli Ruche
Ambra Carmignano (backup for afterparty)

The apps were innocent enough, laying a solid foundation of salt and fat, but as the meal progressed, the stakes got higher. Let's just put it this way: the liquor was the healthiest thing on the table! The first step was the bird. Into the blender went pancetta, butter, olive oil and herbs, and that greasy, LDL laden paste got schmeared under the turkey skin in plain sight. He was aghast (now I realize my mom has hidden all the ungraceful parts of TD prep from the family all these years). Then I had to make the creme brulee (full cream), the stuffing (mushrooms sauteed with pancetta), the soup (more cream), and the gravy (rendered fat, finished with, well, more fat). But the best part was the sweet potatoes. They were whole, in the oven roasting away unadorned and utterly simple, healthy even. I could see my dad was a little relieved. Until I peeled away their skins into strips which I then DEEP FRIED IN DUCK FAT. This is when Dad starting getting visibly nervous and the wine really started to flow. The piece de resistance, however, was when, after only a few bottles of wine and a couple of Lexington Ave.'s, I actually managed to fire the creme brulee without setting my kitchen or my hair alight. I win!

(Full disclosure: I slept for 36 hours afterward--total food coma.)

Other things to cook with the Rougie: homemade french fries, eggs, brussel sprouts, polenta, cippolini onions, roasted chicken, potato cakes, zucchini...etc.