Cranberry Conundrum

What will I do with six cans of cranberry sauce? A surplus of sauce stems from my fear of running out of cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner. Our menu must feature certain colorful sweet sides – yams and cranberries. What makes the feast festive –family, friends, food – and cranberry of course.

Now that the holiday is over, and leftovers are vanishing, what happens to the regal ridged ready to slice and serve canned cranberry? Fear not friends, we will eat the cranberry.

Before going on, I’d like to note I have bought and cooked fresh cranberries. Oh, what fun to watch the berries bubble and hear them sputter and pop, Pop, POP.  Once cooked, the berries become a thick red gloppy, glorious sauce to garnish the turkey and the table.

I’ve also made cranberry chutney with raw berries, mandarin oranges, sugar, and chopped nuts. Neither recipe was asked back for encores on our menu. Despite being delicious, they were unwelcome at our family table because these versions couldn’t compare to the jellied side, which slips and slides from the can into the bowl and onto the plate. We learned new recipes can’t compete with long-standing tradition.

Tradition matters more than taste.

Well, sometimes taste is key too. When my sister-in-law’s mother brought a pecan pie with chocolate for Thanksgiving, she even complained that the pie tasted off. The next year, she showed up with plain pecan pie.

Plain isn’t always welcome though. My mom always baked yams topped with gooey browned marshmallows because my dad loved them. Anyone who did not want or like melted marshmallows with their vegetables simply scooped out naked [gasp!] yams.  

To add or subtract a dish is risky and bold. Yet sometimes it works. My canned pumpkin curry soup was a surprise hit. But speaking from experience in our house: People want what they’ve always had for Thanksgiving dinner. And that’s alright with me.

Now, back to the cans of cranberry, here is my list:

1)     Dollop in oatmeal or on toast.

2)     Slice it up and serve it on any sandwiches.

3)     Bake someone happy with cranberry muffins.

4)     Melt the cranberry over brie for an appetizer.

5)     Try lovely looking lemon cranberry bars featured in the NY Times cooking website.

6)     Eat it out of the can, straight.   

7)     Save a can until next year in case there’s a shortage. I checked the expiration date and thank goodness, the canned cranberry is good until 2025. Yay! The pressure is off.

In closing, I’m grateful for family, friends and sharing a meal together with or without the cranberry sauce. Turns out the cranberry sauce is thankful for being served.

   

 

New Old Words

Have you ever heard of the word outré? It means unusual and startling.

I wasn’t shocked to hear this word while listening to Sherlock Mondays podcast dissecting A Case of Identity in which Holmes and Watson solve the case of Miss Mary Sutherland’s missing fiancé Hosmer Angel. I started reading Sherlock Holmes stories when I was 11 and am still trying to deduce their full meaning.

Podcast host Edward Pettit, a librarian at The Rosenbach museum in Philadelphia, theorized that Doyle wanted to employ this eccentric and exotic word outré in his story after recently reading it in an Edgar Allan Poe story.

Poe is another of my favorite authors. I consider him a gothic genius and master of dark romantic works and poems. The Poe National Historic Site, 532 N. Seventh St., was one of the first national parks I visited in Philadelphia, after Independence Hall. During our Poe house tour, the park ranger recited a riveting rendition of The Black Cat, while standing in front of a brick wall.

Outside the house is a majestic raven statue guarding the house. The Raven, published in 1845, brought Poe great fame. Earlier this fall, a customer roaming through the bookstore where I volunteer, stopped to admire a framed raven print. We started to talk about Poe.

“Do you know the name of the raven in the poem?” he asked with a tinkle in his eye.

I didn’t know the bird had a name.

“Grip,” he said. Then he said Poe was inspired to write the poem after meeting Charles Dickens’ pet raven named Grip. The two men didn’t like one another, he added, but didn’t tell me why.

“I’ve seen Grip at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Look it up,” he said.

The customer was right, the Free Library owns Grip who is displayed in the Rare Book Department and anyone who makes an appointment can meet the renown raven. The library’s website also confirmed that Dickens visited Poe when he came to Philadelphia in 1842.

What an outré meeting that must have been.