Thanksgiving
No national holiday preserves traditions as rigorously observed as the foods of America’s Thanksgiving Day. In fact, it’s impossible to imagine the fourth Thursday of November without turkey, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. Sifton, former food critic for the New York Times, sets out to find the best rendition of the time-honored Thanksgiving dinner. He’s not interested in introducing some trendy new food into the feast, just in steering readers to carefully crafted versions of customary holiday favorites. Sifton quickly inventories essential kitchen equipment for the dinner. He enumerates the sorts of turkeys currently in markets and gives a handful of recipes with varying cooking techniques. A host of different stuffings and side dishes complements the bird. Traditional American desserts conclude the meal. He even details how to set a table, recognizing it as a nearly lost art in today’s world. This is a good resource for any cook not already bound to fixed and inflexible Thanksgiving menus. --Mark Knoblauch