We're joining 20 people in Sea Cliff for this year's Thanksgiving feast. I'm in charge of the birds. Rather than trying to roast one giant bird I'm roasting two smaller American Bronze turkeys from McDonald Farm, one 6.5 pounds and one 12 pounds. I'm doing the dry brine and then carrying them in an insulated bag over the Long Island Railroad. Think it'll work?

I'll also be whipping up some chicken liver pate and this pear, walnut and brandy cranberry sauce, and making a gravy with turkey stock and apple cider. Otherwise our hostess has her own vision for this dinner and it's going to be grand: cornbread stuffing with pork sausage, creamed onions, pumpkin soup, squash, salads, tart, pies.

I am thankful for all the farmers who raised the food we'll be eating this weekend. And I am thankful for the friends we'll share the meal with and for our families near and far. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

I finally got organized enough to enter a Food52 contest! One of the themes this week was pork with apple cider. I probably could have made this with hard apple cider instead of fresh apple cider with vermouth. Anyway, I'm just proud I managed to create a recipe, write it up, and photograph it in time for the deadline. (At least I think I met the deadline.) Have a look-see.

Don't you hate it when you order the scallops at a restaurant and you get just three little ones atop some pile of starch? And they're so good and you wish you could have more? Well since Lane did not want to go out for his birthday ("I see no reason to celebrate turning 42...") I used that as an excuse to buy lots and lots of scallops at the greenmarket for dinner. Oh, they are so sweet and tender.

I discovered a recipe for scallops in vanilla sauce years ago but have since lost it. But it's not that hard to replicate. First I seared the scallops in butter (in batches). Then I set them aside and deglazed the pan with about 1/3 cup vermouth. Once I'd cooked out enough of the alcohol I added a cup or so cream, a few more pats of butter, salt, and 1/2 tablespoon vanilla. At this point I would have added saffron as well but I was out. Shoot.

I simmered that on low while the linguini cooked, then I tossed the noddles in the sauce with the scallops. And we ate so many, many scallops!

While I was having fun with the butter I also made purple carrots with tarragon. I steamed the carrots and then put them in a covered pan with butter and fresh tarragon over low heat.

Unfortunately Jasper threw a magnet at the window of my oven Friday night and shattered the glass. This was partly my fault as I had left the oven on at 400 degrees after roasting a chicken (cringe). Still, that meant I couldn't bake Lane a birthday cake. Instead I bought cupcakes from the Treats Truck. And then the three of us danced the night away.

Just because I'm so proud and can't believe I pulled it off I'm showing you more pictures of my tiny rooftop garden greens. Hopefully the weather will cooperate so I can harvest the spotted lettuce in early December. By the way, I got the seeds for these greens and carrots from the Hudson Valley Seed Library.

Some kind of squash inflicted with fungus

Last week I caught VerySmallAnna musing about gingerbread with pumpkin on Twitter--it sounded so appealing I ran with the idea and made gingerbread pumpkin cake and gingerbread pumpkin muffins.

Please note that both below recipes are so highly derivative of the originals that I cannot consider them my own--I haven't even really changed much of the wording. These are Laurie and Luisa's recipes with a few tweaks. And you should buy their cookbooks. 

For the cake I used a recipe from Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking. Have I mentioned this book, and its predecessor Home Cooking lately? Because I love, love, love these. They're a combination of personal essays on food and recipes--they read like a food blog, actually. Unfortunately Colwin passed away several years ago.

Anyway, this is one of her gingerbread cake recipes. It calls for Lyle's golden syrup (found at Blue Apron, Brooklynites), which gives the cake a lighter flavor than the usual molasses but imparts a luscious moistness as well. I added some fresh pureed and strained pumpkin but the flavor is pretty subtle. I feared adding more would make the cake too damp. This recipe actually originates from Delia Smith's Book of Cakes.

Damp Gingerbread Pumpkin Cake

• 9 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 12 ounces (1 1/2 cups) Lyle's Golden Syrup
• 2 cups plus 2 tblespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons strained, pureed pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Melt the butter in the syrup in a heavy-bottomed pot. Meanwhile, sift together the dry ingredients. Mix syrup mixture and dry ingredients together well. Add egg, milk, and pumpkin and beat the batter for a couple minutes. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 50 to 55 minutes. Cool for at least 10 minutes before turning out.

Colwin says "The middle should be just set, with the edge pulling away from the pan, and a tester will bring out a few crumbs."

For the gingerbread pumpkin muffins I used Luisa's excellent Mother of Invention Muffins recipe, substituting molasses for the brown sugar. This made a rather dark and intense (dare I say, brooding) muffin Jasper rejected, but Lane and I love it. It gives you a nice jolt of flavor first thing in the morning. Some of us need this.

Gingerbread Pumpkin Muffins

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup molasses
• 2 cups pumpkin puree
  
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup buttermilk 
• 3 cups whole wheat flour 
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 cup dried currants

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine sugar, molasses, pumpkin, eggs, melted butter, and buttermilk. Sift together flour and other dry ingredients; add to first bowl and mix well. Fold in dried currants. Scoop into buttered muffin tins. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Makes about 2 dozen. OR pour batter into buttered loaf pan and bake 50-60 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean and dry.

Thanks to Lane for photographing

I admit, I usually buy frozen fish fillets. True, it's always sustainable fish from the Food Coop, but it comes in a neat little boneless, skinless package. I do this partly because I don't trust the sorce and freshness of the fish in my neighborhood stores and partly because I rarely get to the farmer's market early enough before Blue Moon sells out of fish. But this week I made it in time--and I noticed the sea bass was something like $16/pound for fillets and something like $6/pound for whole. Well, that's a no-brainer! I bought a 2-pound whole fish and they threw in a fresh fish head and skeleton (for fish stock) for free.

It wasn't until dinnertime that I realized how fresh and untouched the fish was--it hadn't even been scaled. At this point I probably should have sought out a demonstration online but instead I took a deep breath and got started, figuring it couldn't be that complicated.

Scaling is relatively easy and something I've done before. I grasped the fish by the tail and scraped a knife against the scales. This went quickly with the sea bass, though I did end up with sales in my hair. Here is a video demonstrating how to scale a fish more safely. Notice that he scales in a sink of water so the scales don't fly everywhere.

Now it was time to clean the fish. I put a platic bag in the sink to capture the guts (which we put in the compost pile, but I also should have put a cutting board at the side of the sink. I think I was too befuddled at this point to think clearly (What if it's GROSS???). I had just read the chicken slaughtering post from Farm to Table so I had some vague notion that I should avoid puncturing the intestines. I carefully cut a slit from the bottom fins to the anus.

Then I started pulling out the guts, which clung tenaciously to the cavity. It took some work.

I remember reading something about how you're supposed to remove the gills, and that was even harder. They're sharp and bony and everything it connected to everything else! From this point on things got really messy and I ended up cutting off the head. I also kept rinsing and rinsing. Alas, my camera batteries ran out so we were not able to capture the finished fish.

Later I found this very helpful video, Clean A Fish 101. Turns out you don't have to remove the gills! Good to know. I took my cleaned, beheaded fish and stuffed it with chopped ginger, garlic, and lime. I wrapped it all in foil and baked at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes: perfection. This fish was so good even Jasper liked it (he who claims he only likes salmon). And it was so fresh it left no fishy smell in the kitchen.

What did I learn?

1. The guts are smaller and much less messy than I thought they'd be.
2. I should start with a cutting board next to the sink.
3. Scaling the fish underwater keeps the scales from flying everwhere.
4. I don't have to remove the gills.
5. Scaling and gutting my own fish is a price I'm willing to pay for affordable, sustainably-harvested freshest fresh fish.

I rely on the Monterey Bay fish guide when I buy fish. (They even have an iPhone app!) Black sea bass is a "good alternative."

For Brooklynites, I also like the fish from Fish Tales in Cobble Hill.

Check out this cute video on how to clean a fish by a kid in Hawaii.

I just happened to jump into a conversation the other day (okay, it was on Twitter) about why more people don't eat rabbits. They're an incredibly sustainable animimal to raise for food: they multiply quickly, are easy to feed, don't require large resources. Also, rabbit is delicious. So why don't we eat rabbit like we eat chicken? Here are a few reasons.

1. Many people think they're too cute to eat.

2. They are tricky to cook and eat because they have a lot of tiny bones, and once you get beyond the legs you really have to work hard to extract meat.

3. They're relatively expensive: $22 for a rabbit vs. $12 for a comparably sized chicken at the Park Slope Food Coop.

4. Some people think rabbit tastes gamey.

Okay, the cute thing kind of underscores the denial we all have over eating meat/animals in the first place. I'll leave that aside. And I'll get to #2 later. As for cost, if they're so cheap to raise, why are rabbits so expensive?

Fellow food blogger Ulla Kjarval (Goldilocks Finds Manhattan), who grew up on a farm upstate and knows a thing or two about eating rabbits, tells me it's because rabbit processing is expensive. Processing means slaughtering and butchering. Neither hooved nor poultry, rabbit exists in a highly-regulated no-man's land or processing. No one wants to deal with them, and those who do charge a lot for the trouble. I joked a little about becoming a rabbit processor myself just to keep the bunnies coming. (By the way, Ulla was on Hot Grease today!)

Anyway, Ulla recommended this recipe for rabbit with prunes from Colloquial Cook. As you can see from the photo, I overcooked mine a bit, but it was still delicious. And if you buy your rabbit from Dartagnan it will not taste remotely gamey (#4). For this dish I used just the legs.

Mustard greens are a bright accompaniment to rabbit

The rest of the rabbit I browned in a pot and them simmered in water with onion, bay leaf, and rosemary for stew. This takes care of #3, the bones. I extracted all that delicious rabbit flavor from the bones into a broth. Then I let it cool overnight.

The next day I pulled off all the meat and shredded it. It's not so hard when you do it by hand rather than with a fork and knife.

Then I strained the broth and added about 2 cups buttermilk, a chopped yukon gold potato, and a couple of chopped carrots (Lane picked out the veggies). The buttermilk went especially well with the stew, but I should point out that I used raw buttermilk from a farm. Most commercial buttermilk sold in the supermarket is made with thickening agents, while natural buttermilk is think like skim milk (it's the liquid leftover from when you make butter, hence the name). You can boil or simmer natural buttermilk, but my experience is that commercial buttermilk curdles if you boil it, so be careful. And then enjoy your cute, expensive yet economically cooked, hardly gamey stew!

Right after I returned from Stone Barns I headed over to Roberta's in Bushwick where the Heritage Radio Network broadcasts. Actually, HRN broadcasts from two converted shipping containers in the restaurant's garden. The sound booth has large windows so diners can watch broadcasts--and radio hosts and guests can watch diners.

Hot Grease host Nicole Taylor invited me to be a guest on her show, Hot Grease. What an honor! (Listen to the broadcast here.) I love Nicole's smart shows on the Brooklyn food scene. Hot Grease focuses on deliciousness, sustainability, and food justice issues. Here she is with one of the guys from Snacky Tunes guys just before we get started. What a cozy sound booth, no?

My fellow guest was Asanteewa Harris of the Community Vision Council. She a 3-generation Brooklynite with 8 grandsons living all over the borough. Asanteewa and others from CVC will be attending the upcoming Growing Power gathering, an initiative of urban farming legend Will Allen. I should have taken a picture of Asanteewa because she is gorgeous.

Above the radio station is Roberta's rooftop garden--planted with seed money from none other than Alice Waters. Oh yeah, and the pizza Roberta's is incredible--I tried the Good Girl with kale, taleggio, pork sausage, and garlic. Mmm, must return soon. Check out Edile Brooklyn's writeup.

High up on the list of reasons why I love Jasper's new school is this: they love growing food. The school has a plot at the local community garden and their activities there are integrated into the curriculum. And on Monday the school took a trip up to the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. This is a sustainable farm and education center with a cafe and weekly farmer's market. The farm also helps feed the restaurant Blue Hill (where Lane and I celebrated an anniversary a couple years ago) in New York City.

I'm so glad the school planned the trip in late October, with the fall colors on full display. Sigh--I was often distracted by the fall foliage.

Stone Barns is a pristine example of sustainable farming; much of what I've read about Joel Salatin's farming methods was on display here. Sheep and cows are moved from field to field so as not to overgraze any one piece of land.

The "eggmobiles" are also rotated around the property so the free-range hens can peck new ground and so their droppings don't over-accumulate. Maybe it was the cool weather, but I couldn't believe how fresh the farm smelled.

The Berkshire piglets are kept in the forest. Did you know pigs can't sweat? This is why they roll around in mud--to cool themselves off. At Stone Barns the pigs keep cool in the shade. Jasper found the giant sow's snorting terrifying. They did kind of remind me of the boars in Princess Mononoke.

Gorgeous digs you've got here, piggies! Tell me, who does your decorating?

Of course, they also grow vegetables here.

I think this is drying basil.

The greenhouses.

It occurred to me, schools often take trips to see the animals at the zoo--but doesn't it seem more meaningful to see animals you encounter on your plate? Our tour leader and Jasper's teacher did a great job of engaging the children, helping them to understand how the farm works and what it means for the animals. The following day Jasper's class built their own farm made of blocks, their own clay figures, and other materials. I can't wait to see it this Friday! Jasper tells me he and a classmate got to make the eggmobile. I'll post the restults next week. And now, another gratuitous fall photo.