A Classic Thanksgiving Restaurant

 Imagine having a Thanksgiivng meal every day.If you;re in Texas you can thanks to a chain called Luby's/ This century year old family festaurant is known for its' Southern and American classics

Priya Krishna wrote about this staple of Texas life in today's New York Times Food section. The chain is famed throughout Texas, with locations throughout San Antonio, Dallas , Houston and Corpus Christi,They were founded in 1929 when WilliamLuby opend the first one  in Dallas on Thanksgiving Day..it has had a huge following ,ranking next to other beloved Texas chanisn like BBQ and Whataburger.Yet it almost didn't make it through the pandemic. In 2020, the company closed several locations and announced plans to liquidate and dissolve it's assets. fans were devastated ,placing on line eulogies about its' most favorite dish the Lu Ann Platter (a select entree, two sides and a roll).Thankfully Chicago entrepreneur Calvin Gin bought it a year later  He was going to do some changes, including cutting back on the famed tear round holiday meal. Employees told him not to do it. He didn't after seeing its' popularity.

What makes a Luby's turkey dinner so special?It does taste like a home cooked meal. Theyre are mounds of fluffy mashed potatoes next to even fluffier dinner rolls. Their pecan pie is  as  customer and fan Janie Garza, is not too sweet or too soggy. Every Thanksgiving she buys a take out meal for her family form the restaurant. Other fans like San Antonio's Sam Kinsey, who is eighty-six has beign going to the San Antonio Luby's since 1940's. They recognize him as one of th e old timers and sneak him in in the beginning of the line. He even eats a double meal on Thanksgiving Day, One at wherever he's invited and another on at the restaurant. Luby's however has other Southern specialties. They have the old fashioned and rarely eaten nowadays grilled liver and onions along with fried fish  and chicken fried steak. There's also pot pies and jumbo pork chops. The sides are down home too , with fried okra and baked mac and cheese.

If you want Thanksgiving everyday head to Luby's. They have turkey and stuffking along with cranberrie sauce and yamsn whenever you want them. It can be any time of the year.

The Sweetness Of Dewali

 Monday is the start of Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. As with any holiday. there are fun foods and treats. One of the best spects of the holiday is that there is always freshly made sweets on hand to enjoy with fanily and friends.

Regular contributor and cookbook author Proya Krishna wrote about this celebration of light over darkness in today's New York Times Food section. There will celebrations worldwide along with ones here in the States.Ms Krishna heads to South Asian shops across the country to sample their special Diwali treats or mithai. There is Maharaja Sweets in Jackson Heights Queens. Owner Sukhdev Bawa employees  travel back to India on aregular basis and bring back ideas for regional snacks. He has the Bengali sweet amarkali filled with cherries and pistacchios. He ships these and other mithai sweets across the country.Kent , Washingon  outside of Seattle has Punjab Sweets offering such treats as besan burfi made with chickpea flour and milk cake. The owner Iqbal Dha hires only other women to bake a variety of desserts. It's also the central meeting place for many of the desi community.Jayasri Sweets of Herndon Virginia has got such a reputation that even people bring its' signature sweet, kaja a deep fried pastry back to India to show relatives the Americn version. Owner Jaysari Gampa and her husband Dilipkumar run this popular bakery. 

Some mithai makers have adapted American ingredients. Sohan Lal Gaba uses cow's milk instead of buffalo for his slabs of milk cake in his Brij Mohan Indian Sweets and Restaurant in Sharonville, Ohio, a Cincinnati suburb.he also found the American versions of chickpea floir and sugar were much different too. Surati Farsan Market in Artesia, California, a big South Asian hub is opend for twenty hours a day during this time. The store is festooned with lights as owner Ashvin Patel sells such goodies as cashew based kaju katli and  coconut rich kopra pak. Ms. Krishna also includes recipes for coconut ladoos from Jaysari Gampa and Mr. Patels' caramel badam burfi. The ladoos are a mix of just unsweetened coconut, sugar and cardamon. The coconut and sugar are cooked together as they become a kind of candy. The spice is added later as the blend is rolled into golfball sized balls. The badam burfi is  like a milky fudge made with cooked milk , sugar and almond flour.It's then pressed intoa pan and caramel and nuts are poured over ir.

Celebrate Dowali with lights, love and sweets. These mithai are deilcious whether store bought or homemade. Enjoy them with family and friends.

Your Must Have Thanksgiving Issue Part One

 Thanksgiving is almost two weeks away and it's going to be a big one. It's the first major holiday where we can sit down with family and friends after being separated for so long. The meal has to be spectacular  with fantastic recipes.

This is where today's New York Times Food section comes in It is an unofficial guide to Thanksgiving cooking and baking. It's definitely an inspiration with different spins on classic dishes and new recipes that every home chef has to try.Turkey and gravy lovers will enjoy trying Padma Lakshmi's spin on the holiday bird with a boozy gravy spiked with Calvados,. Regular contributor and great food developer herself interviewed Ms. Laksmi who is more known for being a judge on Top Chef and her eye opening travel and food show "Taste The Nation" streaming on Hulu. Yet it's her turkey recipe that will make an impact on mant Thanksgiving table. She treats the turkey as if it were a very large chicken.It's brined first  in a spicy blend of buttermilk for tenderizing and cayenne pepper for zing and heat. The turkey itself is stuffed with lemon , ginger thyme and garlic for a truly flavorful bite. It's then drizzled and rubbed with olive oil before being  slow roasted in a pan of water. The gravy is a blend of the Calvados with the combined juices of  mashed Fuji and Granny Smith apples, along with red and yellow onions and fennel. The juices are whisked into to a roux of butter and flour and then the Calvados is stirred in.

You could easily add some of the dishes from Liberia;s Thanksgiving day celebrated on the first Thursday of the month.It wasn't modeled on the American holiday and is fraught with a lot of history, festivities and food.Another weekly contributor to the New York Tines Food section, Priya Krishna interviewed Liberian-American chefs who bring their spin and traditional recipes to the American Thanksgiving table. Theirs is different. The day is spent with family , playing kickball and getting dressed up. The ingredients such as cassava and sweet potatoes. There is no turkey in Liberia. There is chicken however and Ms. Krishna gives a recipe for Liberian chicken gravy. This is chicken thighs first rubbed with a fiery mix of  black pepper, cayenne seasoned salt, onion powder and garlic. The gravy is then made with yellow onions garlic cloves and a cube of Maggi chicken broth. This is added to olive oil and tomato paste simmered together. It and the chicken is then baked together for thirty to thirty-five minutes. There is also pan fried collard greens.cooked with either a  cut up Cajum turkey or regular one neck and wings. You can add fish(!) such as dried barracuda or other kinds if you want, It;s still flavorful with  the addition of ham hock, yellow onions and habanero peppers  This is all cooked together for five to ten minutes on a stove top and served with rice.

These are just some of the recipes you can use for your own Thanksgiving table. They offer a fresh brightness to the table/.They will make this holiday stand out.

A Jamaican Christmas Up North

Christmas is full of amazing aromas and flavors. Amp those up and you have a Jamaican holiday. The Jamaicans have always amped up everything about Christmas, from shopping with a junkanoo band playing to cooking and baking flavorful rich dishes. They do the day right.

Famed cookbook writer  and regular contributor, Priya Krishna wrote about it for today's new York Times's Food section. She not only got tot taste the best of Jamaican home chef Hazel Craig but also saw how she created these amazing dishes. Her assistant was her daughter , Jessica, the head  pastry chef at L'Artusa in  Manhattan's West Village.Hazel lives for Christmas celebration It has been the one constant n her family's trouble life here first in Queens , then Islip Long Island. They had even suffered a fire that completely destroyed their house. Yet Hazel would not be deterred during the holidays. She cooked curried goat, callaloo,ackee and saltfish in a small trailer. Even in their rebuilt house, she made sure they had the same feasting as they did before. It stems from Hazel's Jamaican upbringing. The island goes into full partying mode every December. She grew up in Spanish Town where people would dress up, playing drums and dancing in the streets. Her grandmother made her favorite dishes which included curried goat and a fruitcake rife with cherries and raisins marinated in rum since the Christmas before, Hazel's dessert nowadays is a sweet potato pudding , dusted with nutmeg.

The family comes from all over the US for a traditional Jamaican Christmas. Hazel makes the fiery callaloo which would be a perfect chill chaser. right now.It's a fish and greens stew chock full of all sorts of flavors. The original recipe calls for Amaranth and water spinach but Ms. Krishna suggests subbing in kale and Swiss chard with their stems removed. Saltfish or baccalao (cod) is also added for substance along with tomatoes and onions, Hazel adds a teaspoon of Lawry's Seasoned Salt which also has paprika and garlic.It's also cooked with vegetable or canola oil. The fish is first boiled and then shredded into little pieces. The tomato and onion are sauteed , then the saltfish and greens are added and stewed.The other recipe is for curried goat.If you do try this, remember that most supermarkets don't sell it. You'll have to go to a halal butcher for it.Onions and potatoes are added to it along with that famed Jamaican Scotch Bonnet pepper - which is pure fire.There is also the addition of Jamaican curry which also has allspice added ,a spin on the true Indian curry.It takes anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours to cook in a Dutch oven.

Jamaicans know how to do Christmas right. They make it a festival of food, both fiery and warming and sweet and calming. That's exactly what a holiday should be.

A Mexican Flavored New Year

The Jewish New Year is  fast approaching .It begins this Monday with traditional foods celebrating the day, with recipes handed down from Eastern European ancestors. However the next generation adds their own spin, using the ingredients and flavors of their adopted country.

This was the subject of Priya Krishna's article about Mexican -Jewish cooking in today's New York Times Food section., She focused on Fany Gershon, the owner of La Newyorkina ,a sweet, shop, and Dough, a doughnut business. Her Mexican heritage shines through in her paleta's and doughnuts  ,redolent with Mexican cocoa, chipotle and cinnamon. It stands to reason that her family recipes also have these flavors as well.As Ms. Krishna points out Jewish and Mexican cuisine couldn't be further apart but as Ms. Gershon pointed out both are very tradition rooted , very proud and very family oriented.Of course the traditional Rosh Hashanah  platter includes apples and honey to insure a sweet new year., a round challah to symbolize the circle of life , pomegranates to signify abundance and fish heads for fresh starts at the head of the year.The Mexican influences is spice added to matzoh ball soup, apple cinnamon challah and a guajillo pepper gefilte fish.

However she still needed help, especially when she threw her first New Year's dinner in New York.Ms. Gershon had to enlist the help of the New York Times  food writer, Joan Nathan., She was excited to learn that Ms. Nathan's recipes and her grandmother's weren't all that different. Over the years the dishes were honed and polished. The first night will be spent with friends at home while the second night she'll cook a Rosh Hashannah meal at her  husband's ,Daniel Ortiz de Montellano at his restaurant , La Publica in the  Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. There will be homemade challah (which kind of is shaped like her cat Leonard.), rich with apples cooked in sugar and cinnamon.Her chicken broth for the matzoh ball soup will include garlic , cilantro and white onions. She uses white ones because they "taste" like Mexico to her. Extra chicken is added to the pot because the leftovers can be used to fill tacos and enchilada. Her store, La Newyorkina will be serving honey , chile infused ice cream instead of honey cake and rugelach that 's spiked with chipotle peppers.

Family recipes are gems to be passed down. Yet there are outside influences that creep in and make them better. It is true for Mexican-Jewish cooking, a marriage of ancient cuisines.