Sidesgiving Season

And a whole lot of dumplings

Nov 13, 2023

This weekend, my grandma was in town! I love seeing her and we got a jump on the holiday celebrations with Sidesgiving on Friday. Sidesgiving is Thanksgiving without the turkey or traditional main course. It’s just the best parts, the sides, and it can happen anytime in the realm of Thanksgiving, which we are squarely in. We also did this in 2021 and it’s a lot of fun.

Today’s newsletter is the warm up to this week’s main event: The Gift Guide which will land in your inboxes on Thursday! It’s been a labor of love behind the scenes and I’m so excited to share it! Next week, paid subscribers get the All Stars gift guide, featuring favorites from past gift guides that I buy/gift over and over again.

Continuing to share this link to call your reps for a ceasefire (this one works to write). The news is so devastating (and not inevitable) but I’ve seen calls from Palestinians for us to bear witness and raise our voices, so that is what we must do.

Now, let’s dive in.

Something to cook:

I had plans get canceled and I made tofu and broccoli and rice, a comfort dinner. I seasoned the tofu with Fly by Jing’s mala seasoning and steamed the broccoli. I topped everything with sriracha mayo and nori. A great dinner.

We welcomed Grandma to chilly New York with cannellini bean and farro soup, made in the crockpot for ease. It’s a hearty soup that’s great for leftovers the next day. Drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle with cheese before serving.

What did we make at sidesgiving? All the hits. The star of the show was The Kitchenista’s mac and cheese, which was even better the next day. We also made our favorite onion stuffing, this salad for some much needed brightness, green bean casserole, corn casserole (so easy and good). We also had some wines from Camins 2 Dreams, by Native American winemaker Tara Gomez and hot cider with cinnamon, warmed up in the crock pot. It was a team effort and my parents and grandma worked so hard to make this happen. Having Friday off was so nice—Leah and I went over in the afternoon to cook and hang out which made it feel like a holiday.

For our dessert, we made pumpkin fudge torte. It’s so good and rich and the pumpkin whipped cream is incredible the next day in coffee (you’ll have leftover).

Zoe hosted an extremely cool bachelorette party: a cooking class at Home Cooking NY. Chef Erica taught us to make potstickers and pad thai and everything was delicious. Like all good classes, we also learned tips and tricks for getting the most juice out of a lime and got to try different dumpling wrapping techniques (it definitely made me appreciate the labor involved in the dim sum we ate the previous night). It was also a great way to see lots of the people who will be at the wedding in a few weeks. Would definitely recommend hosting an event here or taking one of their classes—you can bring drinks and dessert and there’s lot of space to cook and enjoy what you made.

We wrapped up my grandma’s visit with one last family dinner. My parents made a spinach black bean enchilada bake from Hetty McKinnon’s new cookbook. It was so good and fed a crowd!

Something to order:

Dale and I had a nice date night at Lighthouse, a perennial favorite. We tried their fall pasta special (they told us there was one left so I had to order it). It has butternut squash, spinach, burrata and a tiny bit of goat cheese. It was incredible. I also had oysters (have to) and some delicious Portuguese wine.

Rose and I got a mutual favorite food of ours—pizza at the newly opened LTD Pizza in Hudson Square. The vodka pesto slice is great and they also have good garlic knots and a Caesar salad. The storefront isn’t huge but there are some tables in the back. After dinner, we went the

Snaxshot

event at Happier Grocery, which is New York’s answer to Erewhon (for now, the real thing is coming). It’s a really gorgeous space with two levels of grocery goodness in all categories. It was fun to browse and see some clients and they had a lovely spread at the event.

We kicked off the weekend with a family brunch at Roberta’s (my dad wanted pizza and we wanted to show Grandma Domino Park). The bee sting always hit and I’m on the record that Roberta’s makes some really excellent salads especially for a pizza place. Get the bread and butter as well even if you think you won’t need it.

Amy celebrated her birthday at Dim Sum Palace which is the ideal spot for a birthday party. She got a private room which also has karaoke machines and ordered so much fun—did I mention they allow byob? The place stays open till 3 on the weekends so you can hang out for a while after you eat. The food was so good, especially the mushroom dumplings, garlicky cucumber salad, and scallion pancakes! It was so much fun to celebrate her!