This Month’s Film: YiYi
Cuisine: Taiwanese

Last year, things were a little fragmented in my family circle, so Rene and I decided to partake of the Thanksgiving buffet at a local hotel. Since I’d cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner at the end of September on a food writing assignment for a magazine in Georgia, and my son Will was with his dad for the holiday, I was in no mood to get in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. So Thanksgiving dinner was provided by the buffet at Embassy Suites.

There was an assortment of cheeses and breads, several kinds of salad, all the components of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, plus baked salmon with herbs de provence, and prime rib with horseradish. I sampled a little of everything except the Thanksgiving fare (since I’d really got my fill of that in month before). And for dessert, a chocolaty-luscious mousse, and a deeply dense chocolate cake, with fresh strawberries on the side, a sip of bubbly, and cup of decaf. Quite a departure from the frenzied pace of preparing Thanksgiving dinner for twelve, but not an experience I plan to revisit this year.

Tomorrow, I’m going to make a steak dinner for one in my own kitchen and enjoy it with a good bottle of Pinot Noir.

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