Last week, we had a discussion in our office on guerrilla marketing. Described as those unexpected, unconventional campaigns that show up where you least expect them, guerrilla marketing can be a great way to get attention in an ever-cluttered world. Some great examples include a snake bus wrap, the wonderful “left-handed Whopper” ad and, of course, flash mobs. Here’s one of my faves from Belgium around The Sound of Music:
Which, of course, brings me to… Thanksgiving? For the past four or five years, I have held the Thanksgiving feast at my home for my sisters and their families. And each year, we all look for that extraordinary dish that will become a mainstay at the table. That special, unexpected something in taste, color, presentation or style that will become the thing talked (and/or bragged) about for years.
I am all about Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday. Growing up it was the one time of year my extended family came to town and enjoyed a meal together. And, let’s face it, when you only see family members once a year, everyone has a good time. The whole house smelled delicious. Turkey, rolls, pies and potatoes. But oh, how far we’ve come from just getting out the good china, boiling some potatoes and whipping up a green bean casserole.
You need only pick up one of the many magazines at the checkout touting the best Thanksgiving recipes to know what I’m talking about. Today in the era of the Food Network and the Cooking Channel, we have an abundance of recipes and crafts that make the holiday even MORE memorable than the last. We roast hazelnuts and ground them up into our pie dough. We boil cranberries until they burst and simmer them in a simple syrup for that sophisticated, yet simple side that says I have too much time on my hands. And the turkey – don’t even get me started. Let’s just say if you didn’t order it fresh and pick it up two days before Thanksgiving to begin the prepping and brining and basting, well, you’re behind the times. And if your family hasn’t deep-fried the bird at least once in the last three years, well come on out from under that rock and let’s talk about what you’ve been missing.
In fact, this blog, The Bitten Word, has a great post on trends this holiday. They do all the work for you of scanning the food magazines, trying recipes and giving you their take. So if you’re interested in the best of the best for Thanksgiving, according to authors Zach and Clay, “Bon Appetit BROUGHT IT this Thanksgiving. Buh-ROUGHT. IT.” Love this word cloud that also gives you what’s in and out this year at a glance.
But I digress. Maybe everyone doesn’t consider the all-out recipes a “guerrilla” technique, but that’s all I can think about when Martha Stewart taunts me from the
newsstand, just daring me to bake a soufflé in a pumpkin or hollow out a cabbage to serve crudités. And you just know before you start, it is NOT going to look like the picture. Sadly, that hasn’t stopped me. I have made caramel apple pie (nothing like the picture, yet delicious), sweet potato pumpkin pie (interesting, but never repeated), poached shrimp in red wine and herbs (delicious), a carved pumpkin face in an orange bell pepper to serve dip and brie in puff pastry with holly and berries on top (again, not like the picture, but what isn’t good in puff pastry?). Though, I have to say, none of us has ever topped the year my sister carved a turkey out of a watermelon.
But though appetizers and sides may come and go, here’s one thing that is now a mainstay at our Thanksgiving table: Alton Brown’s brined roast turkey and gravy. I tried this for the first time four years ago and now won’t make the turkey any other way. I brine it the night before and roast it in my mother’s 30-year-old roaster. Hilarious, but it gets so hot and the bird is perfect – faster and better than in the oven – so we keep using it, just crossing our fingers it lasts. And the gravy is to die for.
So however you celebrate this year, I hope your Thanksgiving is about friends, family and fabulous food (with a little flair, of course).