THE COOKBOOK TEST #0038: THE FRIENDSGIVING HANDBOOK

INSTALLMENT #0038 (PAID) NOT WORTH ITS SALT / ROASTED PUMPKIN WITH BACON AND DATES / SHROOM WITH A VIEW (OF LASAGNA) / THE FIRST FEBGIVING, A MENU / BECCA’S DULCE DE LECHE PUMPKIN PIE

Dear Subscribers,

This week is a real tough one for me. THE FRIENDSGIVING HANDBOOK treads upon ground that is sacred for me. Becca and I have been hosting Thanksgiving-in-February (AKA Febgiving) since 2007. (See the end of this post for our very first menu, as copied directly from a spartan Google doc.)

So let's just say that we have Opinions about the holiday. Could we write a book? We could probably write a book merely by talking for five hours into a voice recorder and transcribing it. It would need some polishing, but the bones would be there. We've won those insights with blood, fire, toil, and massive grocery bills.

Which is to say: It's difficult to review someone else's canonical take on Friendsgiving without being a little judgey. Take these words with a grain of kosher salt and read onward.

The Friendsgiving Handbook sets up a pretty simple scenario: You want to celebrate Thanksgiving, your family isn't readily accessible for whatever reason, so now it's time to do it on your own. How to proceed? What to make? How to host? A lot of the context is fairly introductory-level stuff, but there's certainly a (young) audience out there for it.

The recipes feel pretty basic - homemade Thanksgiving 101, for the most part, with a few interesting curveballs like Concord Grape Pie or Sage-Fried Almonds. Otherwise, nothing you couldn't quickly scrape from Epicurious or the New York Times archives, and certainly nothing that presents a new take on Thanksgiving fare. Which is OK! Not every presentation has to be a reinvention, but it does leave a question about the value prospect of The Friendsgiving Handbook - namely, what do we learn that we couldn't have easily figured out on our own with a modicum of (non-AI assisted) Googling?

Authorial voice could've been the differentiating factor, but it's not a major strength of this book. Author Emily Stephenson, for the most part, writes like a recent college graduate. No judgment here, in an absolute sense: If nothing else, once upon a time, I was a recent college graduate who was also a writer. I know what it's like to want to be seen as correct and knowledgeable without necessarily feeling that I am 100% correct and knowledgeable.

Stephenson establishes a self-serious voice of authority early in the book, which is fine, but she then maintains it through situations where she is clearly bluffing out of desperation. 

Please enjoy the following passage, which I've footnoted:

Finally, all salt is kosher salt [1], specifically Diamond Crystal.[2] Please note that Morton brand kosher salt is much saltier, as is sea salt. [3] You can find plenty of conversion guides online [4], though I heartily recommend Diamond Crystal for your all-purpose salt. [5]

[1] Not true.

[2] Not true either, they also make a table salt and a sea salt, distinct in texture and ultimately impact from kosher salt.

[3] Also not true. But if it was true - wouldn't you want to buy the "much saltier" kosher salt and save time and money?

[4] Conversion guides for what purpose, now that we've firmly established that "all salt is kosher salt"?

[5] Diamond Crystal... fine kosher salt? Diamond Crystal ... regular kosher salt? Diamond Crystal... plain table salt? There are numerous varieties, which may not be available throughout the United States. It's almost as though the author has absolutely no idea what she's doing here.

And here's another passage to consider, from the same essay "A Note on Butter (and Other Ingredients)":

I have yet to find a boxed vegetable stock that tastes good. Or, honestly, homemade stock. It's fine, but I don't want my whole dish to taste like it.

This to me reads like the profound musings of someone who has tried one or two store-bought vegetable stocks and summarily given up on the stuff. Is that insane? Absolutely not. Lazy? Well, yes, if you're supposed to be a food writer. A good stance for a cookbook author to profess? No. (For what it's worth: I used Better Than Bouillon vegetable stock via paste just this week and thought it was swell.)

Similarly: the introduction to the turkey chapter says the following:

Should you brine? The short answer is: yes. The long answer is yes, but I know you don't have the fridge space to do it. ... If you have the space and inclination, there are lots of resources online for bringing. But I skip it in this book because the ability to do it safely is pretty rare.

Here's the medium-length answer: ALWAYS BRINE AND ALWAYS USE A DRY BRINE TO AVOID THE MESS AND STORAGE CHALLENGES, YOU BIG DUMMY. The New York Times busted dry-brining onto the national scene in 2009, for God's sake - it's not a secret formula that you've got to copy, while holding a burning torch sideways in your mouth, out of a decaying scroll found only in one specific and hard-to-reach Tibetan monastery. Before then, Zuni Cafe had popularized the method, and they're not exactly an obscure eatery, either. 

I haven't wet brined in more than a decade, specifically because I've tried wet and dry brines side-by-side and found that they both get results - but only one method (wet) is a massive pain in the tuchus.

At any rate, on to the cookery.

at your service,

James

THE FRIENDSGIVING HANDBOOK
BY EMILY STEPHENSON WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MELANIE GANDYRA 
CHRONICLE BOOKS | 2019 | $20     

That was a long windup, so let's cut right to the recipes.

ROASTED PUMPKIN WITH BACON AND DATES

Here's the introduction to the Roasted Pumpkin with Bacon and Dates recipe:

Is the bacon and date combo a little basic and very 2004? Yes.

NOT A STRONG OPENING, EMILY. But it's appropriate enough for this dish, which tastes like no more than the sum of its parts. Bacon, squash, red wine vinegar, thyme, dates - fine, fine, fine, fine, and fine. All together: fine. Forgettably decent! Not broken, but not a keeper either. 

And to obtain even this basic result, I did a little fiddling. I subbed in always-available and flavorwise equivalent butternut squash for the pumpkin, a sub the author should have mentioned - outside of high autumn, pumpkins can be (and should be) hard to source.

Even though I used 1/4 the amount of squash, I only halved the flavorings, because they were as written quite underpowered versus the amount of pumpkin.