I devised this recipe to use up leftover cooked pumpkin. It makes a flavorful, warming appetizer to pass. Served in small glasses for guests to drink from as they mingle. It saves them from maneuvering a spoon and bowl.

Spicy Pumpkin Broth

2 cups roasted pumpkin
1 quart chicken broth/stock
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dry curry powder
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup white wine (I used a muscat, good fruit)

Place wine, onion, and pumpkin in food processor. Pureé until smooth,
adding some of the chicken broth as needed to facilitate processing.

Pour into two-quart saucepan and mix in the remaining broth. Heat to a
low boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to a simmer. Add salt and
curry powder as you stir. Continue simmer for ten minutes, add water if
the broth thickens too much.

Serve.

Makes 8 servings as a soup course, or pass in tall shot glasses as an apéritif, for 10-12 servings.

From Cecil Flentge

(Photo: Nathalie Dulex )

If you really like pungent flavors along with the mellow, slightly sweet beet, this salad is for you. The colors make this a good salad to serve at Christmas dinner.

Beet and Blue Cheese Salad

4 medium-large fresh beets;  roasted, cooled, skinned and sliced
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley, plus a little more for garnish
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese, plus a little more for garnish
3 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

Put beets in a bowl and top with the parsley, blue cheese and toasted pine nuts. Very lightly mix. Garnish with a little more parsley and blue cheese on top.

Serves 4-6.

From Cecil Flentge

So, you have decided to cook a turkey.  It doesn’t matter if this is the  “coming of age”  step where you show your friends you can do things like big kids.  It doesn’t matter if it is just the bait to get your scattered relatives to gather once a year.  You have made the decision, so now it’s time to plan the meal.

There are many ephemeral articles that will give you ideas for decoration, invitation, or theme.  There are many recipes listed to stir your imagination.  But here I am just offering tips you can use to slice your Thanksgiving turkey.

1. Let the big bird rest!  This gives it a chance to let the juices inside settle so they stay in the bird (making it moist) and not pouring out all over the counter.

2. While it is resting, move it into a shallow baking pan.  You know, it has a lip but isn’t more than 1 inch deep.  Then, when you slice, any juices that do drip can be poured over the breast slices or added to the huge cauldron of gravy!

3. Pick up your toaster and cut the turkey.   No!  You wouldn’t use a toaster to cut a turkey.  So don’t use a big chef’s knife; use a thin-long-sharp carving knife!  Yeah, that knife you never use because you can’t chop with it and it is way too long for paring an apple.  Now is the time!  When the blade is sharp and only about an inch wide, you get less “drag” as you slice.  Now is the time to get your knives sharpened before Thanksgiving.

4.  Grasp the end of the drumstick and slice the skin that attaches it to the main body.   Then you can lean the leg and thigh away from the breast.  This will show you where the thigh joins the turkey.  Cut through the joint and remove the hindquarter from the bird. Repeat on the other side of the bird.  Separate the thigh and drumstick at the joint.

5. Then cut along the bones and slide the meat off the leg and thigh, then slice.

6.  Insert a fork in the wing to steady the turkey.  If the wing is too loose, just cut it off at the joint.  Make a long horizontal cut above wing joint through to the body frame.

7. Measure in 1/2 inch and slice down the breast.  Slice straight down with an even stroke. When knife reaches the cut above the wing joint, the slice should fall free on its own.  Continue to slice breast meat easily by starting the cut at a higher point each time.

8. Relax.  If all goes well, great!  If it doesn’t, you have something to talk about!

A sharp knife to carve your holiday turkey will help you to prepare plates efficiently and enhance your presentation. A good blade will allow you to carve turkey in well-proportioned, even slices that look professional every time.

Where to get your knives professionally sharpened: Here is a partial list of options in San Antonio:

Knife Sharpener
11927 Huebner Road # C404,
San Antonio, TX  78201
(210) 691-3330

E A V’s Sharpening
226 Quentin Drive
San Antonio, TX 78201
(210) 735-0865

Saxet Gun Shows
Joe & Harry Freeman Coliseum
Schedule online http://www.saxetshows.com/
Knife Sharpening service at each show

Nagel’s Gun Shop
6201 San Pedro Ave.
San Antonio, Texas 78216
(210) 342-9893 and (210) 342-5420

Cut Rite Inc Hy-Calibre Ctlry
815 N. St. Marys St.
San Antonio, TX  (210) 227-5422

I blame Walt Disney for the general reluctance that the American public has shown towards  rabbit.  Cooking and eating it, not watching funny bunnies with cereal or Elmer Fudd.  I mean, did you see Thumper and think, “Hey, fricasseed rabbit sounds good tonight”?

I do think that way.  I pass herds of goats, see ducks flying north or south, and even look at the cows on the range thinking, “Many meals.”  My wife laughs, but I am a carnivore through and through.  So frogs, peacocks, feral hogs, or rabbits are things I see and my thoughts drift to recipes.  I will share one with you right now.

Rabbit Curry

In many local groceries and meat markets there is fresh or frozen rabbit.  It is just cut up pieces of the critter, cleaned, ready to cook.  This recipe is a fricassée, or a braised/stewed dish. So the meat will simmer in a little liquid for long enough to tenderize it and allow the seasoning to infuse it.  This will take about two hours to prepare, but it is all simple stuff.

3-4 pounds of rabbit, thawed, rinsed, dried with paper towels
1/4 cup dry curry mix (mild or hot, your choice)
2 teaspoons ground coriander seeds
1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil (corn, peanut, or canola)
1 large onion, chopped
4 large cloves garlic, minced
3 ribs celery, chopped
1 cup vegetable stock (or 1 teaspoon vegetable stock concentrate with 1 cup water)
1 cup white wine (avoid oaky whites like Chardonnay)
1 (15-ounce) can coconut milk/cream
2 (15-ounce) cans garbanzo beans, drained
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat a large skillet or Dutch oven on the stove and add oil.  Heat to medium-hot.

As it heats, place dried rabbit in a bowl that large enough to toss the pieces without making a mess.  Mix curry powder, coriander, and cumin.  Sprinkle half of it on the rabbit and toss to coat.  Add flour to the bowl and toss to coat.

Then use tongs to place the rabbit pieces into the skillet to brown.  When all is placed in the skillet, dump leftover flour and seasonings in the bowl into the skillet.  Turn pieces as needed to brown on all sides.  When all pieces are browned, remove from skillet and set aside.

While the rabbit is browning, prep your onion, garlic, and celery.  Have your tomatoes, coconut milk, wine, vegetable stock, and remaining seasonings handy.

When the rabbit is removed from the skillet, add the onions, garlic, and celery.  Stir well and let cook until onions start to become translucent. Then add vegetable stock, wine, coconut milk, and stir well, removing any bits stuck on the bottom of the skillet.  Then add garbanzos and tomatoes.  Stir in and cover skillet, reduce heat to maintain a low simmer for one hour.

Check seasonings and adjust as needed.  Taste a garbanzo bean.  If it does not just melt into a rich goodness on your tongue, recover the skillet and simmer for another 30 minutes.

This is well accompanied by rice and serves 6.  Reheats and freezes well.

From Cecil Flentge

Louis Latour Meursault-Blagny Chateau de Blagny 2006

This white burgundy is from the Cote-d’Or, part of the larger wine region of Burgundy.  Burgundy is popularly known for red wines, based on Pinot Noir grapes, but is one of the best areas for Chardonnay, the grape of choice for white Burgundy.

Fact:  Vibrant yellow straw color and good clarity.  Faint aroma of pineapple precedes the apple-pear and toast that dominates.  Ripe apple and tart minerality initially hit the palate before the luscious pear and vanilla-oak take over and carry to the finish.  Definitely decant; it took 45 minutes for this wine to show its full range of flavors.  This is available locally for $50-60 and will continue to delight for several years.

Feelings:  As soon as it hit the glass, the glittering and bright colors fascinated.  “Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger …” The heady aromas are just seductive.  “And somehow you know, you know even then …” The aromas start with apple pie and a grilled pineapple nearby, wafting fragrances around you.  “When you find your true love …” The flavors are of a picnic in an orchard with sunshine warming the freshly cut fruit.  “Then fly to her side, and make her your own …”

J Russian River Valley Pinot Gris 2007

J, is kind of short for Jordan, but not wanting to confuse people they don’t say that.  Why?  Because it is a separate winery, and Jordan does not make a sparkling wine.  But this isn’t a sparkling wine and why would they even … ?A Jordan started J and J is best-known for sparkling wines.  I don’t think I can make it any more confusing, so I will move on.

Fact: This light, wheat-colored wine is made from the same grapes that give us Pinot Grigio.  Italians call it Pinot Grigio; most other places call it Pinot Gris, same basic grapes.
But this wine is not the light, fruity wine that most imported Pinot Grigio wines tend to be.  The aroma is a rich floral pear but does not give the impression of fruity sweetness.  The palate continues the pear and adds some mineral qualities with a surprising crisp acidity.  This wine has more depth than many Pinot Gris grown outside of Alsace and has a lingering finish that is very satisfying.  Available locally for $15 to $19.

Feeling: I cooked some fresh grouper fillets with a touch of salt and pepper and smoked paprika.  Paneéd, or sautéed, in a little corn oil after I dusted them with flour, the fillets were mostly free to express the richness of their own flavors.  I put them on a bed of pasta with a sauce made of wine, butter, Ancho peppers, and a squirt of agave nectar for sweetness.  On the side was a lightly sautéed mound of grated yellow squash with a chiffonade of basil mixed in just before serving.

Between bites, the cold, tangy wine refreshed and left me ready for the next rich bite.

Zork Pty Ltd is an Australian company that has an alternative wine closure that solves the problems of cork taint and random oxidation for still wines.

What?

They also have a closure that has been specifically designed for sparkling wines and both closures are recyclable.  They even have some funny advertisements.

Are we talking about plastic corks?  Not exactly, nor are we moving into the realm of Stelvin Closures, the best known maker of screwcaps.

But the real import is that the problems of cork taint and random oxidation are being addressed yet again.  Random oxidation is when the cork (natural or plastic) lets in air that makes the wine lose flavor and taste sour.  Cork taint, or corked wine, occurs when a contaminant on a natural cork changes the flavor of a wine from fun to funky, yum to yuck.  It is harmless to you, it is not the fault of the winery or cork producer, but it ruins the wine and wastes good, fermented grape juice.

How often does this happen?  If I told you one in a million bottles, you would lose interest and I really would not be writing this, nor would anyone be making alternatives to natural corks.  Some studies say less than one in 100, others like one done by the Wine Spectator say one in 15.

Detailed look at the Zork STL

But you are saying that has never happened to you?  If true, you are quite lucky.  But have you ever had a wine that just didn’t really taste all that good and kind of musty?  Maybe it was corked.  Did it smell like a wet dog or a moldy old newspaper mingled with the aromas you were expecting? Part of what confuses the issue is that the amount of contamination varies widely and sometimes it is so small that it does not clearly show when you open the wine.  I have accepted a bottle of wine at a restaurant and then rejected it a few minutes later as the problem became clear.  I was lucky that the restaurant was knowledgeable enough to understand. Some people are very quick to notice tiny amounts of the culprit, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA, which can come from TCP, which is from pretty much invisible microbes in, or on, the cork), according to Wikipedia.  Other wine drinkers may not notice TCA unless it is a higher concentration, or the telltale signs may not be as clear to them.

So why am I writing about this?  Because we should not have to put up with a one in 15 chance of buying bad products.  If one in 15 times you pushed the brake pedal on your car and it did not work … If one in 15 times that you dialed a phone number you got someone else …  It is just a very high failure rate when there are other options.

Like the Zork option, or the screwcap option.  The screwcap will last as long as a natural cork of the best quality and doesn’t need a corkscrew.  The Zork is as easy, I do not know about the longevity yet.  The plastic corks are sometimes very tough to get out of a bottle and will only protect your wine for 18 to 36 months.  Right, you don’t keep a wine more than a week.  But the wine shop may keep it for a year and the distributor may have had it for a year and the winery may have taken six to eight months to move it.  This is all unlikely, but most wines with plastic corks are made to drink soon after you buy them.  They can be good, but the wines that benefit from aging for two or three years like a great Chardonnay, or for six or eight years like a good Bordeaux, cannot use plastic corks.

But the traditions!  Have I no sense of romance?  The next time you are in a romantic mood, try sharing a glass of liquid that smells like moldy newspapers.  Get back to me about the result of the experiment.

(photos: Zork Pty Ltd)

Laeticia Brut Rosé Arroyo Grande Valley 2000

This is a venture into the past.  The 2000 vintage of this wine is unlikely to be on the shelves locally, but 2006 or 2007 should be available at $28-$32.  The newer vintages have a very similar profile, but here is the opportunity to see how a wine ages.  This is especially true for Laetitia still wines, like its Pinot Noir, because it ages beautifully.

Facts: An absolutely beautiful salmon-blush of peach-skin color to this predominately Pinot Noir sparkler.  The cherry and strawberry aromas are seasoned by some acidity on the palate from the Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc added to the mix.  At almost nine years of age this is still a vibrant wine that pairs well with many dishes.

Feeling: How can you look at this and not feel you are special?  The fruit perfume of it and the clean and satisfying depth let you know that just by drinking this wine, the night is perfect.  Take a bite of the roasted, boned duck from “Julie & Julia” and savor your life!

The air was warm and dry. I shuffled up a step and tipped forward enough to look under the edge of the open-sided tent shading me. Gorgeous mountains, brilliant sunshine, and green trees everywhere to soothe the eye. Some space in the line in front of me opened and I could almost feel the impatience from behind pushing me forward. I shuffled forward the required 14 inches.

It was Aspen, Colo., in the summer of 1990. I was attending the Aspen/Snowmass International Wine Classic, then sponsored by Food & Wine magazine. Not exactly Woodstock, but much better from my perspective. It was a four-day weekend pilgrimage by a whole lot of people who liked to drink wine and eat.

Each day started with seminars on new trends in food or “wines from this, the best place.” There were daily wine luncheons featuring a particular winery or country or importer. On Friday and Saturday you had access to the big tents with hundreds of wines in each, waiting to be poured into your etched festival wine glass. Plus, there were cooking classes with the “Chef from a famous restaurant” or the “Chef that just finished a cookbook” or the “Chef that Food & Wine magazine said to watch.” There were so many things to choose from that you had to sign up for them like registration day in college. Then there was a cooking class with Julia Child.

My wife, Pam, is a great cook and she deftly shouldered the home cooking responsibilities for our marriage for many years. She still cooks, but now it is more when the spirit moves her, because I had gotten the cooking bug in the mid-’80s and pushed her out of the kitchen. Indeed, I became really enthused about it, buying cookbooks, trying this or that, buying kitchen gadgets and watching cooking shows. I saw a few “‘Galloping Gourmet” episodes’, the occasional local chef production, PBS’s “Great Chefs” series, “Yan Can Cook,” “Madeleine Cooks” and, of course, Julia.

Meryl Streep as "Julia Child" in Columbia Pictures' JULIE & JULIA. (Photo: Jonathan Wenk / Columbia Pictures )

I had attended the Aspen/Snowmass International Wine Classic the year before, in its last year in Snowmass. So I had “been there, done that” and there are so many other festivals available, why did I return? Julia Child. There were other reasons that contributed, but Julia was presenting a cooking demonstration and there was a chance to see her live. My previously stated enthusiasm for cooking had reached such an overload that I had started teaching cooking classes about a year and a half before. So there was just the “see a star” aspect to taking a class from Julia, but there was also the “see what she is like when you can’t do another take” aspect.

So as I shuffled forward in line to have Julia sign a cookbook for me, I was reviewing the class she had presented just a few minutes before. Yes, she had a lot of assistants. That just made me jealous and she was about 77 at the time. But she really only used the assistants when they literally took things out of her hands or picked up her cutting board where she was chopping something to finish the task to one side. They were trying to save her the effort and to save time. Saving time because she was talking to us non-stop as she moved through the recipe and preparation. They were trying to keep her on schedule so she could talk to us, answer questions, and just be Julia Child. She played the role very well.

She really was just like she acted in the television series. The emotional radiation from her was “relax and enjoy.” As the assistants would swoop in and take over some small task, she looked to be somewhat amused and just moved on with whatever she was talking with us about. I guess that was the real difference, Julia talked with us, not at us. She shared her expertise and then went on to mention the American Institute of Wine & Food that she had started with Robert Mondavi. We had a good visit, like when you visit a relative you don’t know well and then find out that there is a lot in common.

The little table where Julia was signing autographs was just two people away. I heard the, “I love your books.” And the, “I watch all of your shows.” But I was just watching her, Julia. So when I was front and center, I really had no idea what I would say to her. I think it was something about how I was so happy to meet her. She watched me for a half second, probably because there were not many men in the line and most were on a leash held by the woman that wanted to be there. But then she asked me my name and signed my book. As I stepped away, I read the “To Cecil, Julia Child.” It was nice, but the big thing was I saw her perform on stage. A show I will never forget.