In the midst of a demanding stretch at work, when it was impossible to think about anything Ingredients, we hosted our latest Sharing the Table. It was good to get back into thinking about food as something other than what’s easy and quick for dinner tonight.

The whole world changed since our bistro-y meal in March—spring! It wasn’t yet asparagus and peas spring, or first lettuce in the garden spring. But it did inspire thoughts of lamb which, in a winding road way, led to a recipe by the mother of a cook who works with Daniel Boulud. We liked it for the same reason chef Boulud chose to write about it—it was a curry, and unexpected. It led to other Indian-ish ideas, and this became our menu:

Toasted Naan with Nigella Seed and Cumin • Spicy Chickpea Poppers • Tears of the Prophet Cocktail

Tandoori Chicken Wings with Pickled Cauliflower • Cucumber Mint Riata • Cilantro Chutney

Lamb and Spinach Curry • Basmati Rice

Cardamom Saffron Panna Cotta with Grilled Pineapple

Look how green the curry is!

This may have been our eleventh meal, but it had a significant first: first epic failure of a dish. We’ve had disappointments before, dishes that didn’t taste as good or weren’t as well-cooked as they might have been. This was different. Our drink bite was intended to be aloo tikka, Indian potato fritters, but while cooking them a half hour before guests were expected to arrive, I watched in dismay as the little cakes simply dissolved in the hot pan. There was nothing in the recipe to bind the potato. They crumbled, stuck to the bottom, were impossible to turn…So, we improvised with wedges of warm, buttered naan, something I’d picked up at Kalustyan’s and planned to serve with the lamb.

In fact the whole meal had an ill-fated feeling to it. The fritters failed. The lamb seemed overly spicy when I tasted it earlier in the afternoon. (This was mitigated by the creamed spinach and yogurt, added just before serving—it was a great dish.) The rice started to break apart during its preliminary rinse—literally, the grains were shattering into rice bits. And as late as 7:00 the panna cotta still hadn’t set, so we were thinking we could pretend it was a pudding. Somehow it held together just enough, though it did have the look of a floppy breast implant when turned out over the pineapple:

And yet, and yet….All was well, the company was terrific, and lessons were learned: 1. have backup; 2. avoid random recipes off the internet, or, if unavoidable, vet with common sense; 3. try challenging recipes or unfamiliar techniques at least once before winging it for company; 4. see #1.

Our charity was Montclair’s Human Needs Food Pantry. And one of these days, we will have a minute to experiment with the camera and its settings, and will work on getting better photos:

Recently we were visiting friends, a family of four, and Paula, the mom, cooked a delicious dinner of falling-off-the-bone ribs, a French potato salad she was trying for the first time, even a key lime pie. We’d been out sightseeing all day and ate like trenchermen, and afterward everyone pitched in and cleared the table. The kids then disappeared to their shared rooms as the grown-ups drifted into the kitchen and talked in whispery tones. It was late, the lights were low, and though it felt like time for bed we just kept on talking while—wait a minute—while Paula, who cooked the meal, started doing the dishes.

Secretly this made me very happy. To one who also cooks and often winds up, by choice, cleaning up, it was reassuring to see another half of a couple who simply accepted that this was part of the job of making a meal; that there was no division of labor, with its “those that cook shalt not clean” ethos which, in a surprising way, makes me feel a little self-conscious about the pleasure I take in the work of returning the kitchen to its original state.

Partly it’s a Zen thing. Washing dishes is one of those engaging ordinary tasks, the modern equivalent of chop wood, carry water. It’s something you do instead of thinking about doing. It’s tactile, tangible, finite, meditative. It gets you out of your head and delivers the concrete satisfaction of a job completed, something that’s not so easy to come by in a world where many of us are caught in a continuum of never-ending abstract work.

Partly it’s about taking responsibility. Cooking can be taxing, even harrying at times, but it is, if you like it at all, the fun job. Cleaning up isn’t, especially for more than a one-pot meal. So when I go overboard on the pots and pans, mixing bowls and roasting sheets, at least I’ve factored in the aftermath. A decision to re-start the sauce in another pan isn’t going to leave an irritating surprise for someone else.

And partly it’s selfish thing. It is satisfying. It appeals to the perfectionist in me, getting everything put away just so. And after a holiday meal or large dinner party, it is an interesting kind of puzzle, like a crossword or sudoku, figuring out the best way to tackle the job.

For all I know, Paula hates doing the dishes, and lost a coin toss to see who was going to clean up. But I prefer to think that, like me, she knows that chores are invaluable in keeping our feet on the ground. Or to paraphrase a popular mindfulness book, “After the ecstasy, the sink.”

So, we went around the calendar. We hosted our first Sharing the Table last March, and this past Saturday, our ninth. That’s twelve months, with no dinners over the typically busy summer.

What did we learn? People really like a dinner party! Guests enter awkwardly, and leave bestowing hugs and warm handshakes. People like supporting local charities. People are generous eaters, and curious about the provenance and preparation of food. People like a glass of wine! What else? A few hours before the evening, it seems like an insane enterprise, but once the conversation begins and the Prophet is flowing, it’s all good—better than good—and within a day or two we’re planning the next dinner.

This one taught us a few things about menu planning, too. The original impulse behind the food of Sharing the Table was to keep it simple, not only to make it tolerable for a single cook (that would be me), but also because it was meant to be about ingredients, and not about showy or fussy or trying-to-wow-the-guests cooking. Sharing the Table—it’s about sharing. Now the idea for this meal seemed to suit: it was to recreate an memorable lunch that some of us had a few years ago at Momofuku Ssam: the bo ssam, an informal, communal pork fest for eight consisting of a slow-roasted shoulder plunked down in the middle of the table that everyone goes at with tongs. Just recently Sam Sifton published recipes for it in The Times magazine, and it seemed perfect. But somewhere along the way our meal evolved and I think strayed…too many dishes, too many sauces, too many moving parts. Absolutely tasty, but, well, kind of elaborate. I knew I’d gone too far when I was deep-frying cilantro leaves for a garnish. Sometimes you need to follow your instincts, not the recipe.

Enough of the critical hindsight. During the evening itself, it was all pleasure and merriment and a wonderful way to raise money for Montclair’s Human Needs Food Pantry.

One nice last thought about sharing: guests are sharing with us. Last month it was a poster, now hanging in our kitchen. This month, a jar of homemade fig preserves, photo above. Thank you, Sabina.

And thank you to everyone else who’s joined us on this spirited venture.

There are a few more photos here, and the full menu at the Sharing the Table site (ckick on the link above, or here.)

My father was an onion eater. Raw onions on sandwiches, on hamburgers, on salads. Diced and piled on the side with a plate of franks and beans. On dark bread, with chicken livers. Folded into a peculiar lunch dish he made for himself, sour cream and vegetables, which was what it sounded like: a bowl of chopped onion, carrots, celery, green peppers, cucumbers, mixed with lots of sour cream, preferably Breakstone’s, and eaten with a fork. Even then it seemed to me, young as I was but alert to any signs of otherness, to be a deeply rooted taste that he’d carried with him from the Bronx. Something of the Old Testament, of “we remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions…”

Scallions, on the other hand, were an onion of a different sort, acceptable, not ethnic, permissible raw. I particularly remember the relish plate, that soon-to-be-passe restaurant amuse of trimmed radishes, celery sticks, a few canned black olives and whole scallion stalks, served in a puddle of water on an icy cold glass dish. I emulated my father, who shook out a little pile of salt onto his bread plate, then dipped the tip of the raw scallion into it. The scallion tasted sharp, hot, salty and green, with a hint of a sulfurous aftertaste that caused you to burp. It tasted grown up, not wholly pleasant but intriguing.

And so I too became an onion eater, and it started with scallions—the gateway onion. They were great in tuna salad; my first seasoning. They wilted beautifully in butter for a simple, delicious omelet; my first aromatic. And they were my first garnish, too, adding a savory, piquant crunch when cut into little rings, white and green, and sprinkled over a bowl of Hormel chili. My father, who never really cooked, stuck with his onions, preferably Bermuda, the Vidalia of its day, but scallions got me going.

One by one other alliums took over. First shallots, then leeks, red onions for salad, the new varieties of sweet onions, so mild and juicy. Pain-in-the-ass pearl onions and the sexy ramp. Scallions became as old-fashioned as that relish plate. In markets, they had all the personality of a vegetable commodity, like celery or iceberg lettuce, dependable but boring, and outside of the occasional stir-fry I almost never used them.

But recently a few things converged, and scallions became, well, really interesting again. First, scallions are perfect in guacamole. After years of not finding the right oniony component—the white onions used in Mexican cooking are hard to come by, basic yellow storage onions are too strong, garlic in guacamole is foul—scallions are it, just sharp enough, just crunchy enough, and always available. Second, scallions on the grill—say no more: the fire makes them sweet and delicious, plus they look great with char marks. And third, encountering David Chang’s over-the-top enthusiasm for noodles with scallion-ginger sauce, which he calls the “mother sauce.” More of a condiment than a sauce, it packs a huge flavor—almost like eating a mouthful of raw onions with every bite. My father would have loved it:

Ginger-Scallion Noodles

Put a big pot of water on to cook your noodles—6 to 8 oz of ramen noodles if you can find them, or lo mein, rice noodles, linguine, whatever. In the meantime, chop two to four cleaned bunches of scallions—you want two-and-a-half cups—then a large knob of ginger, for a half-cup, and mix together in a bowl with a quarter-cup of neutral oil, one-and-a-half teaspoons of soy sauce, up to a teaspoon of sherry vinegar, and 3/4 teaspoon of salt. In my experience, the quantities of everything are flexible, so adjust to find the flavor you want. Let the sauce sit while the water boils, then cook your noodles, drain, mix, and serve. Garnishes are good here—chopped cilantro, a few pickles if you have them, any bits of roasted vegetables, more sliced scallions, a sheet of nori in classic Momofuku fashion. Slurping is encouraged.

The other night I took my oldest son to Momofuku. He’d been to Momofuku Ssam before, but not the original noodle bar. I couldn’t wait for him to try the ramen. See, I said, watching with a particular kind of pleasure as he tasted the food, as the look on his face changed with each bite.

Later I realized that I’d been doing this with him for twenty years. I still clearly see his high chair, his Beatrix Potter bowl, his spoon, like a tiny rubber-coated espresso spoon, his bibs, and remember the slow, patient feedings, spoon into porridge and across and into his mouth, and the wait to see how he would react: eating it sometimes, sometimes not, wanting more or spitting it out or grabbing my hand along the way. Then came the parade of new foods. We followed the standard allergy-drill for new parents, introducing them one at a time. We bought a baby food mill and I felt so proud to take a baked sweet potato, organic of course, something I’d made, absolutely brimming with vitaminic goodness, then puree it and feed to him. He ate it. I swelled with love. Next up: carrots. Now: pork belly with hoisin sauce.

Only twenty, he’s still eating new things all the time. But what about us? How often do we try something new? Two weeks ago I had my first whelk. It was on a seafood platter at a restaurant called the John Dory, nestled in ice among impeccable oysters and littlenecks and half a lobster. It had a minerally of-the-sea flavor and a pleasant, gelatinous texture. Tasty, but I ate it gingerly, chasing this foreign thing in my mouth with a piece of Parker House roll. I probably won’t be looking for whelks on my next trip to the fish market.

 

But then consider the case of something like collards. Collard greens are hardly new or exotic. I’ve had them over the years in restaurants, always with ribs, and where they were always dank and kind of greasy. So though I cook for a family that loves greens, down to an eleven-year-old who barely tolerates other vegetables, I’ve never given them a chance. They turn up in the CSA share, big, coarse, rubbery grey-green leaves banded together, and somehow I always forget to use them.

It’s not a matter of preference, not a white meat vs. dark meat thing. It’s not being picky. It’s not Eww, a whelk?! It’s a prejudice, really. It’s about stereotyping an ingredient, seeing it one way, and one way only, and never bothering to take a real look. So it might as well be new. And there’s the hidden upside—a kind of second chance, the opportunity to try something “new” and experience the flush of discovering that it is delicious. Very delicious.

I made them on a snowy Saturday afternoon to go with a dish of ginger-scallion noodles. Look for leaves that are vibrant, green, without yellowing or brown spots. Wash thoroughly, then cut out the tough center rib and they’re ready. I rolled the leaves and sliced them into wide ribbons, then steam-sauteed them with ginger, garlic, dried hot peppers, and a dash of soy sauce, making sure to let them overcook to get that delicious dry sear where greens begin to stick to the cast iron pan.

I invited my oldest son to join me for lunch. The two of us sat down with chopsticks. It was his first real taste of collards. Mine too.

We eat with our eyes first, the saying goes. But of course we also shop with our eyes. We reach for the vibrant orange bunch carrots, the satsuma with its glossy dark leaves attached, the exotic green zebra-striped tomatoes. Lately, as I’ve been photographing ingredients as well as cooking them, the beauty in food has become both more interesting, and, interestingly, more abundant.

If beauty is not on the surface, it may be on the inside. If not the fruit, them perhaps the stem, or the seed. Certain ingredients are born homely; think russet potato or the featureless jicama. At a glance fresh turmeric looks like a cat turd. The industrialization of agriculture hasn’t helped, either, with its drive to standardize, which results in a uniform blandness. But back to that potato: it may not be conventionally handsome, but in the right light is full of dignity. Up close, fresh turmeric has a fascinating pattern of scales, and just under the peel, its signature saffron tint.

But radicchio, member of the chicory family, is a star, beautiful both in front of the camera and on the table, particularly Treviso and some of the imported varieties. The leaf colors are deep and saturated, the ribs and veins pure white and sharply delineated. Slice a little head of radicchio in half and the moist colors swirl like the marbled endpapers of a Moroccan bound book. (Stealing a simile from an old Saveur—too perfect a description.)

And, perhaps a surprise, it is as versatile as it is beautiful. Radicchios add color and contrast to salads; a favorite is tricolore, balancing sharp red radicchio, crunchy white Belgian endive, and peppery green wild arugula, preferably tossed in a shallot-infused sherry vinaigrette. Radicchios hold up well when cooked. They are wonderful grilled or roasted, succulent and slightly bitter-sweet, packing a lot of vegetable essence into each bite, which is so welcome in winter, radicchio’s season. They’re also great in risotto and pasta.

Whether because of its sexy Italian provenance (though most of our radicchio is now grown in California) or use as a sturdy red leaf in ubiquitous bagged “mesclun” mix, radicchio has become popular in the U.S. despite its bitterness, a taste we usually don’t like. What we generically call radicchio in the supermarket is rosa di Chioggia. It looks like a baby purple cabbage; heads should be firm and heavy for their size without any blemishes. Also available in good markets is Treviso, tapered like Belgian endive though larger, and with a deep wine color. In wintertime, other radicchios arrive from Italy, including the delicate, pale, speckled Castelfranco, pretty as a tousled rose, or Tardive, with its eerily curled leaves. Both have a more tender, sweeter profile. The names of these and other Italian varieties come from towns in the Veneto where, in the 1860s, modern radicchio came into being through the efforts of a Belgian agronomist.

Radicchio Risotto

Here’s an easy and soulful dish for a weekend lunch or light supper for two. The ingredients are basic, and you probably already have most of them: one large head of radicchio, cut into quarters, cored, and sliced lengthwise into ribbons; half an onion, finely chopped; one cup short grain Italian rice like Carnaroli, Nano Vialone, or Arborio; a few tablespoons of olive oil, quarter-cup of white wine or white vermouth, 2 TB butter, 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, and optional tablespoon of brandy. Notice there’s no broth—you could use it, but this is delicious with just water.

Here are the steps: bring eight to ten cups of lightly salted water to the boil (it should taste seasoned, but not salty). Meanwhile, in a four-quart or larger sauce pan with deep sides, heat the olive oil over medium-low until it simmers and add the chopped onion, season with salt, and cook slowly for ten minutes until the onion is softened but not browned. Turn up the heat to medium-high, add radicchio, stirring, then once the radicchio is wilted add the rice, stirring to toast the individual grains in the oil (add more olive oil if needed). Next come the liquids: turn heat to high, add the 1/4 cup white wine or vermouth and cook, stirring, until evaporated, then add 1 cup of the boiling water and cook, stirring, until the water is almost evaporated, and repeat for the next ten minutes. As the rice cooks, releasing its starch, the dish will start to look soupy and the radicchio will stain the rice maroon. Test the rice; it should start to soften. Continue cooking and stirring, now adding 1/2 cup of water at a time, until the rice is cooked but still a little al dente.

Finish by adding the cheese, butter, and optional brandy, and stir furiously as everything begins to fuse. Taste for seasoning and serve immediately in bowls, garnished with parsley and more grated cheese as desired. Enjoy at a table by a window, preferably with snow falling, or in front of the fire. If it’s lunch, have a glass of wine—you’ll feel like you’re on vacation.

 

We had Thanksgiving this year with friends, a lovely shared meal, and as we were packing up to leave I asked our host if he had any plans for the turkey carcass. It was a big one, originally an eighteen-pounder, most of the meat already carved off, and I had the feeling that it, like millions of other turkey carcasses that day in America, was heading for the trash. Like the ham bone in a ham and the fish bones in a fish, wasn’t its function primarily structural, with a little bit of flavor enhancement thrown in? But ham bones give split pea soup real guts, and a clever new trend in restaurants is to fillet your little fish at the table, whisk the skeleton away to the kitchen where it is deep-fried, and then return it as a crispy crackling delicacy, like an offering to a gourmet cat.

For years I also chucked the turkey carcass, but never without hearing the voice of a colleague of many years ago who said that it was the best part of Thanksgiving leftovers. She said made stock out of those already roasted bones and used it for pumpkin risotto. The fact that she’d previously worked in Saveur’s test kitchen gave her credibility, but it was the way she punctuated the word risotto with a sexy lipsmacking sound that made me remember it.

There is, I think, or should be, a leftover spectrum. On the one end there are those who, call them Alphas, waste nothing, whittling away at the meal, day after day, until not a scrap is left. On the other hand there are the Omegas, who start scraping the plates into the garbage while still chewing last mouthfuls. Most of us probably fall somewhere in the middle, dutifully saving what looks savable; eating a percentage of it, maybe; and using the refrigerator as a holding station to “cure” the food and assuage our guilty consciences.

I think Alphas are born, not made. But I also think it’s possible to move closer to their end of the spectrum by consciously channeling the basic motives that make us cooks in the first place, whether it’s simple need, love for the process, the belief that homemade is better, the creativity and escape the kitchen offers, or just the old-fashioned virtues of economy, thrift, and DIY.

Which brings me back to that Thanksgiving turkey. This was the year. I asked, our host offered, so we went home with the carcass wrapped in tin foil, which seemed to tear at every sharp point. I put it in the refrigerator in the basement, promising myself not to leave it there until it was too old to use.

Grillers will tell you, rightly so, that there’s no more elemental act of cooking than meat over fire. But boiling bones has to come in second. It’s a different kind of primitive alchemy, slower, subtler. Grilling takes the edible and makes it delicious. Boiling bones takes the inedible, and coaxes out of it a new life of nourishment.

It’s a cold weather activity, perfect for this season of big meals, with its big birds and big roasts. And it hardly needs a recipe. What I did was hack the carcass into a more manageable form, so that it would fit in a roasting pan; roast it in a 350 degree oven for about twenty minutes, just to give it an extra browning; and then jam the pieces into a stock pot, bones, flaps of skin, cartilage and all, cover it with water, bring it to a boil, skim, and then simmer for between an hour and two hours. Every recipe will advise you to chill the just-cooked stock in an ice bath before refrigerating. I did: I strained it into a bowl that was nested in a larger bowl with ice and ice water. Then the next day I skimmed the layer of fat from the surface, tasted, seasoned, and froze the broth, measured as cups and quarts, in ziplock bags. It’s our own private stash of burnished liquid gold, filled with flavor and body. Our own act of Alpha-like waste-not.

And now, that turkey can truly rest in peace.

We started Sharing the Table—dinner parties for charity—at the end of last winter as a way to explore ingredients, cook for old and new friends, and do it all for a good cause: everyone who comes makes a donation to a food charity. This past weekend saw the seventh and last of our dinners for 2011. As so often happens before any big party, there came that moment when we were completely in the thick of last-minute cooking and cleaning, and took one look at each other and said, Why? But somehow all the dinners proved exactly why. There’s the money raised: over $1200 for Montclair’s Human Needs Food Pantry. But something else—the fellowship, the conversations, the jokes, the dancing (yes, one night), the “sharing the table.” This Saturday was no exception. Eight guests came, few of whom we knew and none of whom we’d ever socialized with before; the whole dinner was booked by a friend’s in-law who neither of us had met. But by the time dinner broke up, around 1:00 in the morning, we felt as if we’d found a whole new group of friends.

The week before, we’d received our end-of-the-season stock-up share from our CSA, around 25 pounds of late fall vegetables, plus a similar size share of fruit from Tree-licious. It inspired the menu:

Spicy Cheddar Cheese Crackers • Marinated Green Olives • Marcona Almonds • Tears of the Prophet Cocktail

Roasted Beet Salad with Red Onions and Orange Slices

Short Rib Ragu with Roasted Fall Vegetables over Baked Polenta

Fresh Ginger Cake with Cognac Ice Cream and Apple and Pear Compote

Dr. Henderson’s Remedy

The main course was meant to be straight short ribs, but the ribs themselves were of such varied sizes, and so fall-off-the-bone tender, that an improvised ragu seemed the better choice. And for the fourth or fifth time we made a dessert that incorporated an ice cream from a favorite among this year’s cookbooks, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home.

There’s a link on the toolbar to Sharing the Table with entries about the previous dinners. The original idea was to start and maintain a separate blog within The Ingredients. Well, it’s difficult enough to keep up with The Ingredients…and as a knowledgeable guest said the other night, the average blog in this country has an average readership of one. Imagine that. So I thought perhaps it wasn’t wise to split my audience. There are also more photos of Saturday’s dinner here.

We’ll be announcing the next round of Sharing the Table at the beginning of January. If you’d like to join our email list, please get in touch via the contact link above.

Author and mother in a photo booth, in the mid 1950s.

Cervantes famously said: “Hunger is the best sauce.” So often what we bring to a meal, emotionally, physically, how we respond to the surroundings, is more important than what’s on the plate, as anyone who’s ever eaten cheese and apples during a fall hike knows. It’s why we love certain restaurants in spite of the food. It’s probably why some kids dislike eating at their friends’ houses.

The first Thanksgiving after my mother died was one of those meals. She died just a few days before Thanksgiving. It was like the keystone being pulled out of an arch, and like lost stones her three survivors—husband, sister, child— crashed and tumbled and just kept rolling. We were distraught, anxious, melancholy, giddy. We were like people on speed, who couldn’t stop talking and who couldn’t sleep. We felt exotic and strangely exhilarated, like travelers on a mysterious voyage, passing through a familiar world that no longer meant very much.

Edith Scott helped bring us back to earth. Edith was my aunt’s best friend, a tall, smart, blustery widow. She had money. Her bracelets jangled when she moved and she talked and laughed with a hoarse smoker’s voice. She loved my aunt, and us by extension, and decided the right thing was to make us Thanksgiving. It didn’t matter that she’d planned to spend the holiday with her grown children in Colorado, or that she’d just moved into a new house outside of town literally a week before. It was her gift to us.

I remember driving my father that afternoon, getting lost looking for Edith’s new house along empty country roads, the light already beginning to fail. It was still mostly farms then, fields covered in the stubble of corn stalks, the few village crossroads, with their gas station and grocery store and one tavern, shut down for the holiday. Hard to understand what she was doing out there. But then we found it, a large contemporary house standing alone in a bare field. We knew it because my aunt’s car was in the driveway. We stepped out of the car into that grey November stillness and went up the long gravel walk.

But when the door opened there was light and music and the smell of cooking. There was Edith, dressed up in an ivory silk blouse and flowing slacks, full of hugs and consolations. My aunt, beautiful again in makeup, already a little tipsy. And there was Shirley, Edith’s housekeeper who left her own family’s Thanksgiving to help make ours, stepping out from the kitchen to say hello in her apron and Keds. A blender was going, making creamy sweet drinks for the women, and Edith already had a scotch and soda in her hand for my father. It was the first time she’d seen us since my mother’s death and we stood for a few overwhelming moments in the hallway until my father burst into tears. Edith took him by the shoulders and, just as quickly, his moment of despair passed.

The thing about our family Thanksgivings was that my mother never made it the way other people did. She never cooked a turkey, or the usual array of side dishes. We never had pumpkin pie. That was all too pedestrian. And that was my mother. Where other people had cats, she had Siamese cats, and the rarer breeds too, chocolate points and blues. Where other families spent a week at the shore, she convinced my aunt, who married a savvy businessman, to fund trips to the Caribbean. She drove unpredictable foreign sports cars, MGs and Kharmann Ghias. Listened to Dave Brubeck and Ella Fitzgerald. She slept late in the morning, spent hours getting ready for the day, much of it on the phone with her sister. She redecorated continuously, learning to hang wallpaper and reupholster furniture. And once she started getting sick—she had significant cancers three times in her life—she had us move from house to house, sometimes as owners, sometimes as renters, always looking for something better. All my friends assumed that we were rich. What we were was in debt. But what a feeling of privilege to be inside the spell that my mother wove of her short, restless life. Our meals reflected it as well. She loved to cook, and so used Thanksgiving, like all our holidays, as an excuse to turn to her inspiration, Craig Claiborne, and prepare gourmet dishes like Beef Bourguignon and Paella and Chicken Cacciatore, Prime Rib and Fondue. The closest we came to traditional Thanksgiving flavor was a tart bready cranberry stuffing that she served with roast pork.

Yet here we were, in a generic ranch house that still smelled of cement and lumber, the furnishings haphazardly arrayed, wall-to-wall carpet with its factory sheen, about to sit down to an all-American, decidedly pedestrian meal. It was the real thing: roast turkey, Pennsylvania Dutch mashed potato stuffing, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, creamed corn, jellied cranberry sauce in a can, gravy, the works.

And god, it was delicious. After helping bring everything to the table Shirley left and the four of us sat down and ate, and some of us ate more than we had in weeks. I discovered the intense pleasure of a turkey drumstick. The heavenly matrix of savory and sweet, that spot on the plate where stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn and cranberry sauce all merge. The harmonizing principle of real gravy. My aunt, at just five feet, was pound for pound the heartiest eater I’ve ever known, and always joked that we were a family of trencherman. Truth is we were, and for that night, at least, we were back.

After dinner, the memories fade. Edith’s boyfriend, Matthew, came over for dessert. Someone put on the TV for my father. There was pie. More cigarettes, more wine, a lot of laughter. Then it was time to go. Edith, who was leaving for Boulder the next morning, wrapped all the leftovers, pressed them into my hands. A parting gift.

The next morning I was returning to New York. The sad strange hiatus was over. So was my childhood. Before I left I bought a bag of soft seeded rolls from the local bakery and slapped together a few turkey sandwiches for the road. I remember eating them on the turnpike. They were just a little dry.

Portrait of the author as an extremely young man, with, from left to right, his mother, father, and aunt.

It’s such a treat to find fruit growing in the wild. Blueberries on the banks of a pond in the Berkshires. Raspberries and blackberries, glowing like jewels in the bramble. And grapes, especially grapes, with their dangling clusters of purple and green-gold fruit. It’s a primal pleasure, the fruit so colorful, the urge to pick and eat it older than our oldest ancestor.

When the Vikings sailed across the north Atlantic a thousand years ago they named the land they discovered Vineland, after the profusion of wild grapes growing there. Those vines belonged to our native species, Vitus lambrusca. You can still find them, fox grapes, entangled with other trees and plants or half-fallen fences, growing at the edge between woods and fields. We had the experience a few years ago of apple-picking in the Catskills, weaving our way through the orchard rows that laddered up the side of a mountain, dutifully filling our wagon but most excited about the hot cider donuts waiting at the check out, when I discovered a cache of ripe wild grapes on the other side of a stone wall. Such a clear memory: their mouth-puckering sweet-sour taste, the sticky juice, chewy skin and intensely tannic seeds; and the yellow jackets gorging drunkenly on rotting berries that had dropped to the ground.

The most famous V. lambrusca cultivar is the Concord, developed in the mid-1800s by a New Englander who named it after the town in Massachusetts where he had his farm. It’s the grape whose candy-like flavor is etched into the sense memories of generations of American kids. It’s the taste of grape juice and grape jelly, grape candy and grape bubblegum. And for some, the first taste of communion, thanks to a Dr. Thomas Welch (yes, that Welch) who figured out that pasteurizing Concord grape juice would prevent it from fermenting, making it an acceptable non-alcoholic choice for his church’s sacrament.

Concord grapes are grown by the ton to fill PB&Js and juice boxes, but are rarely served as table grapes. The slipskin is nice; the pulpy fruit just pops out. But those damned seeds. Still, it’s worth trying them while they’re still in local markets. Not unlike a pomegranate, Concord grapes take a little work but are fun to eat. And if you also happen to be in the mood for a rewarding cooking project, bake this classic Italian harvest focaccia. Made with our native grapes, it’s full of intriguing spicy-sweetness.

Schiacciata con L’uva

This is a recipe adapted from David Tanis. The dough is almost no-knead, relying on an overnight rise for its deep flavor and chew. Pour 1/2 cup warm water in a mixing bowl and add a TB of active dry yeast and 3 TB flour. Stir and allow to come to a bubble, about five minutes. Next add another cup of water, 3 cups of all-purpose flour minus the 3 TB already used, 2 tsp fine sea salt, and a 1/2 cup olive oil. Stir until the mixture comes together in a rough, sticky mass, knead in the bowl for a minute or two, then turn out onto a table of work surface and knead for another minute. Oil a bowl and turn the dough into it, cover the bowl and put in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, pat the dough onto a well-oiled 10 x 15 inch baking sheet, and allow to rise again in a warm place for about an hour, covered with plastic wrap. Pre-heat oven to 400. Then prepare the topping, which basically consists of seeding a few cups of Concord grapes—there’s no easy way to do this, though I found slitting the grape with a paring knife helps get things started more quickly. An essential addition is fresh rosemary, and pine nuts and caramelized red onions are also good. Just before the focaccia is ready to bake, poke the grapes into the dough, evenly cover with the rosemary, and pine nuts or onions if using, and sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the focaccia is brown on top and the scents of warm grape and rosemary waft through the kitchen.

Yes, the Concord grape, all grown up. Serve this anytime, warm or at room temperature, with coffee in the morning, or as a snack, or, best, with a glass of real grape juice—i.e., wine—before dinner.