Greetings from Mexico!

We’re deep into the holiday season. Halloween is behind us, it’s the day after Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving is less than 10 days away. Pumpkins are everywhere and my local stores are brimming with turkey, cranberries, various stuffing blends and so on.

Since childhood (maybe even before!) my family has spent a substantial percentage of holidays in Mexico. I’m not 100% certain how or why this began, but the majority of my childhood holiday memories come from Mexico. As a full-grown adult, this aspect of the holiday season hasn’t much changed.

Last year, I had Thanksgiving in Seattle’s Pacific Northwest. This year… I’ll be glamping on the beach in Cabo Pulmo, BCS, MX. A friend owns some property way way off the grid; a rustic exposed brick and palm beach casita. My personal favorite aspect (aside from the beach, salty air and beach) is… the gigantic wood fired oven he built. This behemoth is bigger than many commercial wood ovens I’ve used. It’s straight majestic! I’ll be roasting everything in this gorgeous beach oven. I’m very excited!

Last year, I did a relatively traditional Thanksgiving Meal at home and on the blog. Over the coming week, I’ll share last year’s more Traditional U.S. Flavors, but I’ll also layer in some of this year’s more Mexican approach. I gotta work with what I’ve got!

Plus, if I had to be honest, when a meal tends to circle around the same 8 recipes, across the entire country, across all blogs, tables, cookbooks, etc. it’s tough to know how to breathe new life into the topic. A frisky Latin twist seemed fun, as I’m most certainly thankful for my border hopping life!

To illustrate, I’ve long liked to bone and brine a raw turkey. Then, I like to tie the brined muscle meat into larger roasts, then roast them. In my opinion, it tastes better and is far easier to manage, control, slice, etc. than a standard whole bird. The only meaningful downside is, a whole roasted turkey is simply glorious at the center of a holiday meal.

For me, the benefits of a perfectly cooked boneless turkey roast wins against the spectacle of the often dry, awkwardly cooked, hard to slice, whole bird. Plus, a lovely sliced presentation of the roasts is its own slightly smaller, but still glorious, event. I just feel this is as good as it gets. Anything else… is a bit of a step down (at least for me).

So, what to do? Have some fun with it! Infuse a few new tastes. Sure, it eschews some tradition, but it works well with my world. I can’t be the only one mixing cultures. Plus, because I’m cooking… I get to choose the meal. HUZZAH!!

I also want to change things up a bit. Historically, I’ve always sent these massive blog posts that take forever to read. I’m starting to believe it cheats us all out of a potentially better experience.

So, I’m going to try that. I’m going to send less stuff… more often!

Today’s Recipes

Festive Mexican Cabbage Salad

This, weirdly, is one of my favorite recipes. Not only was the outcome fantastic, but the way it came about was also perfect.

See, this recipe was developed in Mexico and intended for the holiday table. This meant it needed to be festive, but also spot-on tasty, tied to the… More >

Pan-Seared Brussels Sprouts with Cranberries, Bacon and Maple

Boy do I wish I remembered where I was when I first enjoyed the source of this recipe. I want to say it was at kind of funky rustic farm to table joint that I checked out on a drive through Chicago, but I really don’t recall. The original recipe… More >

Take a look at my books!

The Fakery

An Easy Guide to Grain-Free Quick Breads

Taking Out the Carbage

AKA The Big Book of Bacon

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