Uncle Walt must think I’m not getting enough magic, because my laptop refuses to connect to their Interwebs. Thus the first-ever Simmer report from my iPhone, short, sweet and hoping this thing works.

Wherever you are, I hope you enjoyed a marvelous holiday with people you love and food you adore. And since I missed a proper stuffed, basted and cranberried feast, feel free to recap yours! From sunny, surreal, frizzy-haired Florida, wishing you and yours the best.

If you wish to build your own, here’s the sedimentary diagram of the club:

* Toasted Potato Bread
* Mayonnaise
* Crispy Thick-Cut Pepper Bacon
* Fresh Spinach
* Baby Swiss Cheese
* Roast Turkey
* Cranberry-Cherry Balsamic Relish
* Toasted Potato Bread

(Yes, Potato Bread and no, I don’t think that carb can get any more white)

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Leftover Mashed Potato Pancakes

from May 8, 2008

There were some very good mashed potatoes on a shelf in the fridge, leftovers with nothing to do. For me, a container of fluffy whiteness is a waving red flag – I’ve been fine-tuning “mashed potato cakes” for years, and if there’s even a few spoonfuls around, they’ll soon be scooped and pressed and plopped in a pan.

Easy, eh?

Well in theory, yes – but in real life, coaxing whipped potatoes into crispy cakes takes a little doing, and yesterday, I finally got it done. Let’s take a look:

My ice cream scoop is a seasoned veteran and does not shirk potato duty. Summer will be back before you know it, and that means Mr. Scoop up there is training for Dulce de Leche season. So the more work, the better.

Scoop and press into little velvety pancakes. Palm-sized carbs, I heart you.

Set up two small bowls: one with an egg-milk mixture and one with seasoned bread crumbs. Dip the potato cake in the egg mixture, then coat both sides in bread crumbs.

I had some Panko bread crumbs in the pantry – the Japanese breading that makes tempura magic – and decided it was just right for potato cakes. It was.

Time to fry! Do not be afraid. Butter is your friend.

Drain their browned goodness on paper towels, sprinkle with salt and ground pepper, and serve.

Crispy on the outside, steamy soft on the inside. What finally solved this was giving mashed potatoes the crabcake treatment, and they came out Panko perfect. If I were French I’d add some greens, a nice vinaigrette, a glass of red wine and call it dinner. But I’m in the middle of the Midwest on a sky blue day – so I’ll just call it lunch. And a very fine lunch, at that.

Of course I’ll check in from the trenches – this is the food holiday, after all – but for now, I wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving, with the safest of travels, the sweetest of potatoes, and more than a few tart cranberries.

Cranberry-Cherry Balsamic Relish

My absolute lip-puckering favorite.  For the punch it brings it’s absurdly easy, and worth making double for the leftover sandwiches alone.

1 12-oz bag cranberries, picked over
1 cup light brown sugar
½ large orange, peeled and segmented
1 cup dried cherries
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tsp cinnamon

Place dried cherries and orange in food processor bowl; process to small bits. Add cranberries, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar and cinnamon, then pulse to finely chopped (some coarse spots are fine). Taste for seasoning and adjust to your own taste. May be made several days ahead; flavor deepens over time.

My friend is sincere and caring and means only well. But I stared at the words on the screen, and quickly dashed off a crazed email – I have bad angsty writing? – and just as quick she amended her statement. No, no, no – not nauseatingly angst-ridden or anything, “I just know it’s chaotic for you.”

But the damage was done. Now I was angst-ridden over being called angst-ridden.

A private review of my own words proved my pal right – I didn’t think the sunny Australians even thought about angst, but she’s really a native New Yorker, and that explains it. With all the fuss and strife selling a house that you loved, but wanting to build another one, and living without them both — well, the dark side was bound to spill.

my eBay lamp feels my pain

I recalled my husband telling me that no one feels for you when you’re building your dream house. Oh, crap…he’s right! Thank goodness it’s Thanksgiving, and we are nearing the end of the pity party. I’m near-starved for a kitchen, and some true sear and smoke and meat in my own pans, but a dim feeling is growing, and it’s gratitude.

Right now I’m in Chicago, in my mother’s condo kitchen, trying to find the bowls and spoons and spatulas. This is not the house I grew up in, so the drawers are foreign and the plastic wrap isn’t where it should be – but I am grateful to be here, knocking out some family stuffing, and grateful to cook just about anywhere.

I am grateful for the opportunity to build our house and in it, a special kitchen. Here, in the old house, is last year’s holiday:

Bountiful. Shiny. Yeasty and hand-rolled!

The lovely clinking of glasses, drippy candles, ribbons and berries and a sage green living room. Wait a minute…that paint in the living room…

Hmm. Next year I will put out the cranberry relishes – two kinds. One with dried cherries, and one a thick orange-cranberry sauce – on a round black table under the wooden beam trusses…

…in the sunroom, which we painted…

…sage green. Apparently, you can take it with you.

All of my crazy little turkey things – salt & pepper shakers, flea market figurines, and the fat porcelain bird standing guard on the cinnamon rolls, above – will share Thanksgiving together tomorrow in storage.

If I packed them in the same box with the china and the glassware, maybe they’ll all have themselves a fine old time. We will, too, and a note to my dear Aussie friend, who will no doubt have an angsty fit when she reads this: more sad words, mate – we’ll sit in my kitchen next year and drink tea, and have blue Kansas skies from now on.

Happy Thanksgiving!