013: HOLIDAYS - Thanksgiving Traditions

Phil

The batter, just like roll around in the

Chris

it's, it's stuck to the spoon. And so like, I wasted a bunch of first trying that and then thinned it and tried it again and got some of the butter out and wasted some more and all the while my, sauce was. thickening. by the time I got my crepe batter to the appropriate like consistency, the white sauce that I had made was just. Chunky. So at least the filling tasted good. I'm not sure what I would do differently. Maybe, maybe timing, maybe trying to send the sauce out a little bit more. not let it thicken as much.

Phil

Maybe not use a rye. With your crepes

Chris

well, right actually worked I had to thin it out Baton, but then it ended up working well and had a nice flavor. it was just getting to that point. It was a little bit of struggle.

Phil

can you explain what a Basha Mel is? I genuinely don't know.

Chris

I think it's one of the foundational, French sauces. I couldn't name the rest of them, honestly, but, it's a white sauce it's really just buttermilk and flour. So it forms a foundation of a lot of other sauces, you melt butter and stir in a little bit of flour and you get like this paced mixture. And when that comes to a boil, you're pouring in warm milk, and then you're kind of stirring the whole thing, consistently for a few minutes. And it's, tricky the consistency part of it like nailing. That is what I think is the trickiest. it's just like a nice, uh, creamy white sauce. and it's a great foundation that you can then like build off of,

Phil

okay, so you're making crepes. Have I ever shown you my crepe video of when I flip a crepe in the pan without a

Chris

don't think I've seen the no

Phil

it's like probably a year old and I'm probably more proud of it now than ever because crepes never get easier. okay. I'm probably going to have to post

Chris

that's going to be posted somewhere. I'm sure. Right.

Phil

It's pretty fun. I'll post it. Oh, I don't know this week, maybe. Sure. I'll post it this week.

Chris

It's a fill. That was, that was my night. How how's your day, Ben?

Phil

Oh, my day has been pretty good. You know, we're. Prepping for the holidays. the family's been traveling this week. I'll catch up with them a little bit later. I've got to tie up some loose ends here in the office and yeah, kind of looking forward to a few days off for Thanksgiving and kind of looking forward to having some traditions and. Maybe making up, making some new, new traditions as well.

Chris

That's always kind of fun, kind of like figuring out what those, traditions that your family has, as opposed to kind of how you guys grew up.

Phil

yup. Yup. Absolutely. They do tend to change over time. At least mine have.

Chris

How so.

Phil

well, Christopher, I have maybe a little bit of an interesting background with those Thanksgiving or holiday traditions, and maybe a good way to. Kind of set it all up is okay. You have two sons, so I wouldn't expect you to have ever seen the film, but there's this small little movie that came out a few years ago called frozen. It was by this a little outfit production company called Disney.

Chris

in the movie, right?

Phil

Oh, yeah. Super indie. Yeah. Super B-level. Yeah. okay, so it did fairly well and well enough at least to have a few spinoffs. And one of the spinoffs was this little short that they came out, um, a year or two ago called Oh, loss, frozen adventure. it's basically about a Olaf. Who's a snowman. And. The premise of the film of the short is that he's, he's sad because he doesn't have any family traditions in large part because he's a snowman, so he doesn't have any family. And, uh, so he, so he's kind of feeling bad about himself. And so he goes on this, big adventure, to find the perfect tradition for himself. And As childish as that may seem, it actually kind of resonates with me because I had a mixed family growing up and parents divorced when I was pretty young. I would often share my Thanksgivings. I would either spend, you know, half the day with one family and the other half with the other, or after families moved apart from each other, I would. You know, just take turns and I would spend one Thanksgiving with this family and the next one with the other, and it kind of didn't really leave a whole lot of space for traditions.

And so I don't know if I really have any, you know, we have like the Turkey at two o'clock, that's like when everybody eats their Thanksgiving meal, which is odd, but

Chris

I'm not sure. I understand that. Honestly, Molly and I were talking about that today.

Phil

Yeah, it's totally a thing. Everybody does it. That that might be our tradition. You eat Turkey at two o'clock and have some pumpkin pie. Maybe try to watch some football. But I think the cool thing about this whole idea of traditions or the lack thereof is that we can kind of make them our own, like, we can create traditions for our own families. It's not too late, you know, like we didn't have to carry on what was passed down to us. And I know for some people that's probably super important and they want to do that. And that's great. But for the rest of us, that didn't really have these really amazing traditions, then it's not too late to start.

Chris

Yeah, I'm just thinking of a couple of friends of ours that have kind of started having this friends, giving every Thanksgiving and it's a whole day event for sure. And I don't remember all the specifics of what they do, but, um, I know they start out with this. massive waffle bar, and then they go run a 5k and there's some of the.

Phil

of those guys.

Chris

Yeah. And then there's some of the traditional, Turkey and sides and whatever stuff that they get into later. But, yeah, that's definitely like a tradition that they've developed and we're still trying to figure out ours. I don't know if we really have any specifically now, you know, we alternate years between our families, you know, sometimes we're flying out East, sometimes we're staying here. And, honestly, like, I never grew up with any super, strong traditions, either I guess, um,

Phil

I can think of one. It only happens about once every 100 years. Once a millennia, maybe your birthday falls on Thanksgiving

Chris

Which is terrible.

Phil

that's this year.

Chris

just so happens to be this year. It does.

Phil

Happy birthday kid. How old are you now?

Chris

Yeah. Well, in a week, I'll be at that point where I'm closer to 40 and 30, so,

Phil

That side.

Chris

so, so many things to look forward to.

Phil

like a fine wine, my friend, like a fine wine.

Chris

Oh, one can only have,

Phil

Okay. So what about, what about food? Do you have any. Do you have any must haves that kind of fall in line with Thanksgiving for you?

Chris

Yeah. So since we never really had any like unique. Traditions. I think we did have some consistency with, meals, but for me, Turkey is fine, but Turkey becomes good when there's cranberry sauce involved. I know that's a kind of partisan thing, I guess not everybody's on board with the cranberry sauce. Either there's there, there are factions in that fight. but, I don't know, for me, I just have to have with Thanksgiving and it doesn't necessarily mean the, cylindrical canned Vaguely cranberry ASQ purple tube of slime. honestly, I'll, don't totally love that if that's all we got. but we've, made some, some really awesome cranberry, both sauces. And then Molly grew up with something called cranberry relish. That's. Yeah, but not a bad substitute. I just don't like gravy that much. So putting that on a Turkey or mashed potatoes, I'm just not crazy, you know, like if you're making cranberry sauce at home, Just slow simmering, lots of sugar sauce. That's like perfect for me. That's fantastic. I love that. but the cranberry relish that Molly grew up with, I really don't mind. It's interesting.

It's, cold and I don't know the exact recipe, but it's, it's pretty much just fresh cranberries. And I think you might throw like whole oranges into a blender with probably more sugar than you should be eating and it's super, super good.

Phil

do you think you could nail down a recipe for that? I'd love to put it in the show notes.

Chris

Yeah, we can definitely, we can totally find on Molly. Molly has one or two. it's interesting. It's something that I'd never tried. it's got that cranberry Tang, but it's bright. I think it goes well with, with, Thanksgiving. It alleviates some of the heaviness. I think of a lot of other stuff you have.

Phil

well, we're 100% on board with the cranberry thing. And like you, I also grew up with the, the gelatin ask form of cranberry. I honestly thought that's what it was. And then I met my wife. Thank God. She introduced me to basically cranberries in a crock pot with some slices of oranges and a bunch of sugar. And then it just like cooks all day. There might be a couple of other things in there. Maybe some cinnamon, I feel like. And by the time it's time to eat at again, two o'clock it's so good. I mean, I'd never eaten whole cranberries before that weren't dried into Craisins, you know,

Chris

Yeah, that's one of my favorite cranberry sauces for sure. That that style

Phil

yeah. Eaten by the spoonful. Whereas before I kind of feel like I avoided the cranberries. So thanks Pinterest for teaching my wife, that one, sweet potato casserole,

Chris

Oh, yeah. That's, that's definitely a must have for us,

Phil

Yeah, we'll make it with pecans. And if my wife hears this, she's going to correct me, and that's totally fine. She does all the time. Right? Rightly so. I feel like she puts maple syrup in it to sweeten it up a little bit and it's so good. So good.

Chris

all right. So the way, the way that I think, I think it actually came from my, dad's mom. So the way that my grandma would always make it, I want to say there's like a base layer of oats and Brown sugar. Or on top, like, so like sweet potatoes, diced up oats and Brown sugar, and then marshmallows on top of that.

Phil

and you don't even need breakfast.

Chris

it is pretty fantastic. Little sweet, but that's okay. That's what Thanksgiving's for. Yeah.

Phil

I agree. I agree. Okay. What I'll do is I think this is really, really entertaining to me. I don't know if it is to our listeners, but I'm going to, I'm going to try to curate a little bit of a list here of these sides with some recipes that we often use and put it on our show notes. Someone's going to get something from that. What else? Like any, any other signs that stand out other than, you know, maybe some roads rolls or something.

Chris

gosh, those are definitely the go tos. I think if we can find him, sister Schubert's roles, I actually, they come in like the little, the little pie tin. Yeah, you can, you can kill one of those pretty easy. There's there's always going to be the typical green bean casserole kind of wherever we go. Yeah, no, that can be good. I think there's better ways to do green beans, but that's fine.

Phil

okay. Green bean casserole with, or without cream of mushroom soup.

Chris

See, typically I'm very much against cream of mushroom soup, but at that time, during Thanksgiving, if there are, whatever, like the little, onions, like fried onion, straws, whatever on of it. Yeah. if you can get that crunchiness to counteract some of that creaminess that's okay. I'll eat it. It's still, probably not my favorite way to do green beans,

Phil

Yeah. Yeah. well, I love the, the crisp of a fresh green bean by itself. Like canned green beans. What was up with that generation?

Chris

So I think there's always going to be pumpkin pie, whether anybody actually likes it or not. I don't know.

Phil

does every body want pumpkin pie?

Chris

I've never been a big fan of it. I don't know. I think everybody always ends up having some, but it's not been my favorite. One thing that we've been going to often is like an Apple cranberry and that I can get behind. I like, I like fruit pies. gosh, what did we make? I might've been last year, Elijah and I made a pie and I can't remember exactly what it was. I don't know if it was a chest pie whatever it was. It was, it was pretty fantastic. It was good. but I think my favorite pie for Thanksgiving is going to sound so weird. My grandmother, my mom's mom was just an absolute, fantastic Baker and cook as well. she made some just incredible pies, but my favorite was always her lemon meringue pie. And so she knew that and she would specifically make one for me every Thanksgiving at other times of the year as well. But I don't know. I've just come to like associate. Thanksgiving and lemon meringue pie. I know that's like super strange non traditional at all, but that's, that's kinda like one of my favorites, especially with like a huge stack of Marangu on the top. can't go wrong with that.

Phil

Yeah. Like you, Chris, I've never really been one to gravitate toward the pumpkin pie. I don't think it's bad. I mean, if somebody gave me a slice of pumpkin pie and I'm not going to hurt their feelings, you know, I can enjoy it, but man, have her ranking pies. It is nowhere near the top. Not even close. I think the texture is a little strange, but again, I can get past that. I think the flavors are decent. They're not the best. They're not the best. when I married him into Ashley's family, I was introduced to a thing called pumpkin Schiff. like basically a pumpkin pie, but I think the filter has been kind of emulsified in with like a whipped cream. And so it just kind of lightens up the filling and it's, it's not bad. It's a little bit airy. It's really not too bad, but again, probably not the one that I would jump to. And if, we're in the habit of ranking pies, I, I got to say chocolate pie is my all-time favorite.

It is so good. Yeah. It's a little bit like your Marangu. I think you're, you're a lemon merengue because it's got, it's either got my ring on top or it's got a, you know, like a whipped cream. topping to it, but Ashley makes it with a Marangu and man, the way that Marangu toasts in the oven and the way the chocolate, which is kind of like, well, it's kind of funny, the, the recipe that she uses for this, this chocolate sauce. Is so similar to like a really rich, hot chocolate. And then I think you just keep cooking it and it keeps thickening up and then it turns into a pie filling. So that's my favorite,

Chris

How long have you guys kind of had that as a Thanksgiving pie?

Phil

So this is a tradition that I. Inherited when I married Ashley. So it's, been a handful of years. I didn't even think I'd had chocolate pie before that I've had like a French silk pie, you know, at village Inn or whatever.

Chris

Well, I think one of the reasons I ask is that. Yeah, traditions are funny. it's something that can be like, we just do this because we always have, and it kind of sucks. Nobody likes it, but we do it anyway, or it can be something like the lemon rang pie for me, where, I just always remember my grandparents and, there's just like some really awesome, warm feelings I do genuinely love while I'm riding by. but I also have some really great associations with that. so maybe, maybe it's, since I've been saying where we are a little more judicious with our traditions and maybe it's one of those things, like the kitchen knives where you kind of asked, does this do something for me or not? And. paired down to the ones that's actually means something to you. And maybe that opens up space to create new traditions, can impart that meaning to your kids.

Phil

So Chris, if I understand you correctly, you are giving us permission to not have pumpkin pie. If we don't absolutely love it. Yeah.

Chris

Sure why not?

Phil

Somebody is going to be listening

Chris

quest question that

Phil

to defend me. I really hope it's

Chris

Question at all. yeah. Heck yeah. I questioned the pumpkin pie. Find a different bird, Turkey, Maybe there's a reason that we don't eat Turkey all the time. it's like a hard bird to cook. It doesn't have the potential to be as delicious as chicken does, in my opinion, it doesn't have the potential to be as flavorful or as, moist

Phil

I agree with you to a degree. And this is going to lead me to throw out all tradition yet again, the best way to do Turkey in the crock pot. I don't care. You can base it. You can deep fry it. You can do whatever you want, but you put that thing in the crock pot. you might need a large Crock-Pot or just a small bird, but I promise you it's going to be the best you've ever had in your life.

Chris

I'm going to go out on limb and say, that's not saying much Phil. I've got a low bar for Turkey. we've been doing some interesting things with Turkey lately, actually. now that I think about it, the past while we've done dual turkeys when we're with my parents and my dad we'll deep fry one and my brother-in-law will smoke one. And. They're good. they're both genuinely good, but I dunno, like at like a roast chicken,

Phil

I do agree with you. I do agree with you. What if we just started having salmon on Thanksgiving?

Chris

June, I guess he could pork Tenderloin. Nah, no, that kind of feels a little more Christmasy to me.

Phil

What about spaghetti

Chris

Okay. Sure.

Phil

new tradition right now.

Chris

if that speaks to you, go for it. I actually did see a really interesting recipe from some mean, I am. I am blanking on her last name, but she's got a cookbook that came out and that was like pretty big, a few years ago, and a Netflix special that went along with it. both of which go by the name, salt, fat acid heat. And, she had a actually, I think she might have. Prepared that recipe or a variation of it in the show. But, um, she has recipe that It's actually a chicken recipe that she adapted to turkeys. so it's a buttermilk brined chicken is what she originally, made. but she's adapted it to the Turkey

Phil

That sounds great. I love it. She's she's great. She's one of my favorites. So it sounds like Chris, you can do whatever you want, long as you're with those you love and. Do it, why not? You know, life is short. That actually might be the opposite of what this whole kitchen, but I don't know. Maybe not. Yeah. Well, I can't wait dive in and I also, I can't wait for the next episode that actually launches on Thanksgiving day. Because your birthday

Chris

Yeah. Looking forward to that for sure. Uh, that will be a day where I'm sure all of us have plenty of leftovers to deal with. So yeah. Awesome felt well, it has been fun and a happy Thanksgiving week. I don't know if you celebrate the whole week like you do with birthdays apparently, but a happy Thanksgiving week.

Phil

And to you and to you. See you, Chris.