The Culinarian - Thanksgiving Edition!

Ok, yes in all reality Thanksgiving was a couple weeks back BUT it doesn't mean I still can't write about Thanksgiving back home and all the food goodness that followed. So my friend Maddy decided to come home to experience the Saylor Family Thanksgiving. Maddy did have alot of fun (or at least I hope so) but it was all good times. Way to many jokes (which is never a problem in my eyes) with the whole family, alot of amazing food and thats to the extent of it. After this paragraph I'm just going to bombard this whole post with photos so oogle and oggle at all the delicious food and the captions that follow.

Pre Thanksgiving Snack: Crab Squares - a spread made from crab, cream cheese, your seasoning of choice, shallots and some sharp cheddar cheese. Put on bread (of your choice), browned under the salamander till GBD (Golden Brown & Delicious) and then sprinkled with smoked paprika and enjoy.

THE TURKEY: Marinated in Franks Red Hot Sauce for 24 hours, rubbed down with Cajun spices, injected with Cajun butter and then deep fried. Spicy, moist, and just so flipping good. Been doing it this way for many, many years.

The Fixings: Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes with of course marshmallows and cranberry sauce

Maddy and Her Cranberry Sauce, shes the one who made it this year and it was bangin and so on after Thanksgiving, we ate cranberry relish/sauce with everything, I enjoyed it with some ice cream.

The Stuffing: Italian sausage, cornbread, mirepoix, mushrooms and some giblets. 

Giblet Gravy: Gravy Amazing in your Mouth

Slow Cooked Greenbeans: Simmered till tender with onions, potato, some white wine and of course a ham hock for smoked, pork flavor from our favorite butcher.

Mom Slicing Turkey

My Sister baked up all the Rolls and assisted in prep

My Dad looking formal for the event (only for the classiest of events is the tuxedo tshirt a requirement) taking the turkey off its what you would call it that holds the turkey as it goes into the deep fryer.

Me post Thanksgiving, now you might ask, what did Garrett do during this Thanksgiving meal, well I watched the deep fryer and help do some turkey prep, I had to keep an eye on the oil temp and also miss Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade again but its no big deal, for delicious turkey, its worth it.

Mom made her amazing pumpkin pie!

And my father, Lily my dog and I got into a whipped cream fight

Now breakfast for me when I go home is like one of the greatest things on the face of the planet. I will argue that my dad's biscuits and gravy kicks yours in the butt because its my dad's. One of my favorite meals.

Outside North Market, I'm pretty positive I've written about North Market before, describe it as a scaled down version of Chelsea Market but still awesome!

The one and only Jeni's Ice Cream, yes I ate ice cream at 10:30 in the morning, what else is new.

Schmidt's, some of the best German food you can get. Tucked away in Columbus' German Village, this place is just amazing. See the date, 1886, yes they've been open that long and its stayed in the family going on 5 generations. Amazing kraut, housemade everything....good, simple food.

I had a bhama mama (a spicy kielbasi) with kraut, potato pancakes and apple sauce of course.

Maddy had bratwurst, kraut, warm German potato salad, and applesauce.

Another favorite breakfast, French toast made with baguette, an egg mixture in which the base is heavy cream and screw maple syrup, just sugar ontop of my French toast. An addition, I was spoiled all break long because Maddy had Kona coffee from back home so I had a cup or two every morning.

A four way using the Gold Star Chili Recipe. Now I know Ohio has this rep for being out there but this is good chili and the face we serve it over pasta no one gets. This chili is a brown chili versus a red chili from the south. And unlike being tomato based and spicy from chile's, Cincy style chili gains its color from use of chili powder but sweet spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, etc. The ground beef in it isn't browned either, its cooked in the liquid and thickens through simmering. But theres different classifications of this chili and pasta.

Theres the coney: a small hotdog with chili, onion, mustard and grated sharp cheddar cheese

The 3 way: Pasta, chili, cheese

The 4 way: Pasta, chili, cheese, onion

The 5 way: Pasta, chili, cheese, onion, and kidney beans

Always served with oyster crackers and your choice of hot sauce.

I wanted to finish this blog post with a shot of Jeni's Ice Cream, from left to right it was, Bourbon and Pecan, Cumin and Almond Brittle, Almond Cake and Brown Butter Ice Creams.

So thats it for the Thanksgiving Edition of the Culinarian. Enjoy!

-Garrett