— Blanca Martinez

Uh, I am just gonna start off. I'm not, this is not a sob story, but rather, hey, this is the story of Memoria. Uh, my mom died when I was 17 years old. She was the one who really sort of drove the holidays around our house. She took them very seriously and just prepared for them. Uh, she was the one that really sort of drove the traditions around it. Uh, for Thanksgiving though, she didn't have many really traditional dishes that she did, but for the cranberry sauce, uh, which was just a really unctuous lovely thing of whole fresh cranberries, sied down, uh, let's see. She put in their, uh, walnuts, diced pears, orange zest, and a tiny little bit of, uh, chopped celery in there along with brown sugar to add sort of a, a more nuanced sweetness to it to balance out the tartness of those cranberries. And so this was her cranberry relish. Uh, every now and then she would take some, uh, you know, like a can of mandarin orange slices and throw that in there at the very end. But that's a dish. Some, some iteration of that. I make every Thanksgiving in memorial of her. Uh, the, so that's one of my favorites. Uh, another one is that I have a sort of a surrogate mother who was my mom's best friend who took over, uh, many of those mothering rolls when my mother passed. And, and Patsy, uh, she, uh, you, she was a, a very proper southerner. And she made a dish of mashed sweet potatoes, topped with brown sugar and some brown butter, some pecan pieces. And then on top of that, she would put some marshmallows, throw the whole thing under the broiler. We got all sizzly, sexy, crunchy, burned, sweet, bitter. Oh man, it was so good. So that's another thing that I do. So I do both of those things in memory of, of women that I love very much. And so that isn't that kind of what we do around the holidays. We sort of invite the ghosts of our past, present, and future to hover close indeed around us. Um, so other things that I like to do on Thanksgiving is I like to introduce some seafood. 'cause I'm a seafood guy and ISI cold smoke a side of salmon. And this is a three to four day process that I do. I get a whole side of fresh, uh, farmed salmon. I typically use a Norwegian salmon on this coming from a sustainable source. I do a cure mix of four part salt to one part brown sugar. I throw in there a whole bunch of mace, ground mace, uh, onion powder, garlic powder. And if I'm feeling kind of spicy, I'll put in some dill or some ginger powder, fennel seeds, et cetera. And then I completely cover both sides of the salmon with that. And I let it sit for about 24 hours. Now, typically that's a lot more time than you would cold queue or something than I learned how to do it when I was in restaurants. But here is something I figured out in restaurants. I would put it into a walk-in and walk-ins have big fans that blow air. So it's basically a convection cold oven in that way. And so it evaporated a lot of the moisture outta that salmon a lot quicker. And so I would only do it for like 12 hours at a restaurant. But in the refrigerator, I do it for about 24 hours. And then I wash the salmon off all that salt, pat it dry with paper towels, and then I douse it with per no or herb scent. And the reason why I do that is because I'm trying to dry off the surface of it. Now, can any of you think and quickly give me an answer to why, if I'm trying to dry off the surface of my salmon, would I drench it in alcohol? Anybody put your answer in down there at the bottom and maybe Patrick can, uh, observe, see if anybody's got a good answer. So I'm gonna hold off on that. So what I do is I drench it with that. I put it back in the walk-in for another day or so. And what that does is it dries out that surface and it forms what's known as a iCal, which is the sticky surface area to it. All the proteins that have been drawn out, those cells that have been slightly dehydrated by the salt, the wicking aspect of that, well, those are now sticky. What's good about that? Well, it gives the smoke something to stick to, right? This is a very important thing, especially 'cause we are cold smoking. I don't wanna cook the salmon at all. We're gonna cold smoke it to add flavor to it. So I get more sort of bang for my smoke buck in terms of lower timeframe when you add that on, uh, when you, uh, uh, yeah, what was I talking about? Anyway? So you get more, uh, sort of more smoke flavor for your buck, uh, the lesser time that you put it in there. So less danger you have of over of cooking it at all. So I like to do that. Let's see. Other things that I like to introduce are textures. So these are not so much dishes that I do here, uh, blanca to your question, but whatever it dishes that you are doing, add some texture to it. What is, what is this meal other than, you know, a buffet, a just ongoing buffet of so many different things, right? And what's gonna keep it interesting to me, it's colors, try and always have a lot of different colors of things and textures. So I always try and add something crunchy, whether that's your jerky, fried onions on top, whether it's adding pomegranate barrels or seeds, uh, into a salad or throw them on top of your, you know, brown sugar, roasted sweet potatoes, anything like that. I use a lot of different nuts, uh, from sliver walnuts and, or I'm sorry, sliver almonds that I will simmer in olive oil until their golden brown and that oil is nutty and unctuous. And then I'll use that just as a dressing with maybe some lemon juice and sprinkle that on top of whatever, whether it's my roasted root vegetables, I'll sprinkle that on top. So you get this textural contrast and things. And guess what? It keeps it so interesting because bite after bite, you're coming back and there's that contrasting aspect to it. So I would do that. And then the last thing that I would say is fresh herbs, right? Uh, this is not a, uh, sort of the very traditional lineup of dishes. Tends not to use a lot of fresh herbs. Now you've got sage in your stuffing recipe, maybe something like that. But big tufts of fresh herbs, even cilantro, parsley, schererville, uh, some thin shredded sliced mint. Things like that are wonderful in terms of adding freshness to a meal that's very well known for being heavy, right? But it adds this lightness, this brightness, this freshness, uh, to the whole meal that just, well makes it more palatable, more digestible to me, but also more interesting. So again, with that sweet potato dish, great. Throw a, a handful of cilantro stems on top. Will they wilt slightly, yes. But this incredible, wonderful aromatic flavor, uh, will come into the whole dish and it'll just promote more interest, your gravy that you make, great, throw in some chopped fresh herbs into there. So it's this wonderful, beautiful, you know, sauce that net pays and thickens over everything, but adds that brightness, really. Chopped fresh parsley is great for that.