Thanksgiving plans across the country are being suspended and cancelled this year – our year of COVID-19, panic, existential dread, and group anxiety. Everyone’s expectations for relief and some reassuring holiday cheer have been dashed. And political divide within some families is driving the wedge further. How can we have a hopeful Thanksgiving?

Let’s try to cheer up and count those blessings we overlook every day. Luke the wonder dog and I went for our morning walk today. We go for the same walk five mornings a week. Today wasn’t much different from yesterday or the day before. But it was wintery cold for the first time today. There was frost on the grass. And I wore a hat and gloves and a nice warm coat. It was so unlike the walk we would have taken if we still lived in Florida. It is a joy to be wearing turtlenecks and sweaters again. For this I am grateful.

Our daily walks might seem to be a monotonous routine, but recently we trained a fellow quotidian walker to keep some dog biscuits in her pocket, to share with Luke, and he is overjoyed to see the old lady every day. His ears perk up and he strains eagerly to meet her on the path, where she kindly gives him a tiny dog treat – the size of a Flintstone vitamin. And then she pats his head, and tells him what a good boy he is. We all socialize for a moment and then go our own ways. We have made a tenuous connection, and the three of us are a little bit happier. Thank you.

Every couple of days I leave Luke penned up in the kitchen, with Alexa playing NPR, and a red rubber Kong toy stuffed with peanut butter, while I make a quick trip to the grocery store. After I finish writing this piece I will be buzzing out, mask in hand, with some reusable, locally-sourced bags, to pick up some wine for dinner, and a copy of the New York Times. While shopping I will make eye contact with a few of the other shoppers as we bob and weave and struggle to remember to keep our social distance. You have to smile with extra crinkling efforts these days, so people can tell you are smiling. Everyone seems to be trying harder. This is good.

Depending on the size of your pandemic pod, you might not be having much of a Thanksgiving feast. But you are always going to have a sinkful of dishes. No matter how much cleaning you do as you go along, there will be greasy pots, fragile glasses, gritty mixing bowls, slippery silverware and sticky beaters. For that we should be truly grateful.

I read somewhere today that Nigella Lawson, who is English, thought we should just have vanilla ice cream with a cranberry syrup on Thanksgiving. Sure. That’s just what we need to be doing – scrimping on dessert. I don’t think so, Nigella. (I mean, she butters her toast twice, for heaven’s sake!) Luke and I don’t walk five miles a day to have a measly bowl of ice cream for Thanksgiving dessert. On Thanksgiving we will be indulging in our favorite flourless chocolate cake. With whipped cream, thank you very much. Well, Mr. Friday and I will be. We’ll give Luke the treat of a peanut butter-stuffed Kong, but we’ll stay in the kitchen with him as we listen to NPR together. I can’t wait to hear Susan Stamberg’s annual recitation her mother-in-law’s recipe for orange cranberry relish. It is our Thanksgiving ritual. And then we will sidle over to the Group W bench for 18 minutes of song with Arlo Guthrie. And then maybe we’ll take a walk. Happy Thanksgiving!

Nigella’s recipe: https://www.nigella.com/recipes/ice-cream-with-cranberry-syrup

Susan Stamberg: https://www.npr.org/2006/11/23/4176014/mama-stambergs-cranberry-relish-recipe

The Spy’s Flourless Chocolate Cake: https://chestertownspy.org/2012/02/09/food-friday-for-love-and-chocolate/

Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Massacree: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/brief-history-alices-restaurant-180967276/

“Those who are not grateful soon begin to complain of everything.”
― Thomas Merton

At Thanksgiving we have to open ourselves up to new traditions and tastes, while being grateful. As we gather together, whether it is via Zoom or FaceTime, or if we are lucky enough to have a little family unit pod to call our own, or if we are stalwart singletons gamely firing up the oven for a modest roast chicken, we will all be considering the all-important side dishes.

My favorite dinner is a roasted chicken breast, with salt and pepper and some chopped onions nestled on top of the skin. And I like a side dish of rice and butter. It is the most comforting meal to me because it is what my mother prepared for my family birthday celebrations. With a little green salad, with a splash of a simple oil and vinegar homemade dressing. Modest and simple, and easy to put together.

Turkey isn’t all that different from chicken, except there is more of it, and it requires more ritual, ceremony, and expense. And people have so many opinions about how to cook it: brine it, roast it, deep fry it, inject it, wedge compound butter under the skin, coat with strips of bacon, smoke it, and spatchcock it. Mr. Friday spoke with some yearning about a new brining combo he’d love to try this year. The Tall One has enjoyed success smoking a few birds. I guess we will have to be open to the adventuresome cooks who are taking an interest in the assembly of Thanksgiving this year. They are also chatting, albeit casually, about stepping up our side dish repertoire. I find this more alarming. I like some traditions to be consistent and unvaried.

I read a listicle in Thrillist this week about the side dishes most preferred by each state. It was an eye-opener. I had never considered macaroni and cheese as a viable Thanksgiving side dish before. https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/most-popular-thanksgiving-sides-list-2020-zippia

Maryland, according to Thrillist, is a mac and cheese state. So is my adopted home, North Carolina. But Connecticut, where I grew up, is a mashed potato state. Bland and starchy Connecticut? It could well be, but add some good quality butter and a pinch of Maldon salt, I think you will find mashed potatoes the perfect accompaniment to roast turkey. And as divine as mac and cheese may well be, can you hollow it out to create a little gravy reservoir? Doubtful.

I suppose it could be worse, Indiana likes deviled eggs. At Thanksgiving? That strikes me as both odd and wrong. But I also believe that the only sort of hors d’oeuvres you should consume at Thanksgiving are the cashews you pick very carefully out of a silver bowl of mixed nuts, and a very 1950s-feeling relish platter, with celery, carrot sticks, radishes and gherkin pickles. You should get to the table with an empty belly. That is the best way to appreciate and consume your fair share of Parker House rolls.

We have a family debate every year whether we should have Parker House rolls or Pillsbury crescent rolls, not being very talented yeast roll bakers. We rely on Pepperidge Farm and Pillsbury every holiday season, but we forget from year to year which we prefer. Annual group amnesia is our most unfailing family characteristic. And if we ever move to West Virginia, Oklahoma, Missouri, or Utah we will fit right in, as they prefer rolls, which I assume means generic dinner rolls. South Dakota will clinch the argument for crescent rolls.

We lived in Florida for more than 20 years, and I can safely say that never once did we have sweet potato casserole. Lucky me. I’ve never lived in Kentucky, where broccoli casserole is a favorite side dish. It must be grim living in Kentucky.

Green bean casserole is the favorite in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. I like green beans as much as the next, but I draw the line at anything that uses a can of mushroom soup. Over the years I have politely moved green bean casserole around on my plate, or hidden it under a crescent roll. I find that cranberry relish is a wonderful agent for disguising discards.

I think stuffing and dressing are a personal decision – like religion or political party. I will not question you openly about your choice. That said, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New Jersey like stuffing, whereas Louisiana and Alabama prefer dressing.

We always mash potatoes. Some years we peel a bag o’russets (usually when we are testing out a new boyfriend or girlfriend), or we go wild and boil up some new, pink-skinned potatoes. We might need to try Alaska’s preferred side: hash brown casserole. That seems worth edging warily out of our stodgy comfort zone.

We are prepared to be a little adventurous with our side selections this year. I don’t think we will try the white gravy that is the fave in Arkansas, but maybe we will go out on a limb and have some Iowa corn with our dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberry relish, and turkey. We will leave the mac and cheese, broccoli casserole, and white gravy for the devotees of regional cuisine.

Be careful out there. Here is a link to CDC guidelines for our COVID Thanksgiving: https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/cdc-recommendations-for-thanksgiving-2020-guidelines

“What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.”
― A.A. Milne

Normally November is the busiest time for cooks and food writers – we cannot get enough of making plans and menus for Thanksgiving and the December holidays at which we gather together. This is not a normal year. We are all dancing as fast as we can to hold onto our fraying sanity, while wearing masks and keeping everyone else at arm’s length. Unless we are very comfortable with Zoom, there won’t be any holiday parties. The only plus is that we won’t have to talk about the election with our uncles. But wouldn’t it be nice to see them all again?

We are opting for a smaller, less boisterous Thanksgiving. At which we will earnestly ask for blessings for everyone, and will remember jollier times. Like the Thanksgiving where we ran out of chairs and the children were relegated to a coffee table. And how, like clockwork, we almost always manage to forget the green beans until after the parade of food from the kitchen to the table has begun. Our cast of characters will be smaller this year. We always have a couple of mashed potato specialists, but only one master baster. We will suffer pie-wise, because Courtnei brings the only acceptable pecan pie. And Julia is in charge of the corn bread stuffing. It just won’t feel the same.

One Thanksgiving in Florida we ate outside, because it was a pleasant temperature and there were lots of wriggling children. We fired up the fairy lights and moved the stereo speakers out onto the back porch. It was an adventure to eat formally, with candles and sterling, and the ancestral china, and tinkling crystal outside, not because we were minimizing the spread of germs. Outside dining is an option for some folks this year. Everyone brings a covered dish, a blanket and some hand sanitizer. (Can I suggest from personal experience that you leave the good china inside, and go for the everyday? It will be dark, after all.) It will be challenging, but I bet we see some clever Instagram feeds of families breaking bread while bundled up. And think about grilling a turkey breast instead of deep frying an entire bird – you can spend even more time outdoors: https://www.101cookingfortwo.com/grilled-brown-sugar-rubbed-turkey/ Added extra: the white wine will chill itself.

So start your low-key Thanksgiving planning. Be innovative. Instead of forgetting the green beans this year, why don’t you try roasting some Brussels sprouts? https://www.wellplated.com/oven-roasted-brussels-sprouts/

If you are going to be a smaller family unit this year, how about making your life easy? Roast a chicken. You can still eat drumsticks: https://food52.com/recipes/17568-barbara-kafka-s-simplest-roast-chicken Then you can splash out for some really nice wine, and make a labor intensive and decadent dessert involving choux pastry, chocolate and creme pat: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/choux-pastry/

A dose of romance could liven up a holiday spent at home. Lots of candles and a brace of Cornish game hen, wild rice, roasted Brussels sprouts, chocolate eclairs, with fewer dishes to wash. Take a nice meandering walk in the cold, and have an evening streaming comforting Hayao Miyazaki films. Find something to make yourselves happy. And in 20 years, you’ll have something to remember when this chapter is all over.

With COVID lurking around every corner these days, we have to be flexible and learn how to pivot. Maybe next year we will be back to normal, while listening to the uncles still droning on about the election. And won’t that be grand?

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
― Oscar Wilde

Ever mindful of the restrictions of social distancing during these days of COVID, we try to be a little fancier when we cook at home on Saturday nights. We light candles, make sure the napkins match the tablecloth, have a slightly pricier bottle of wine and sometimes plan a dessert. And sometimes we have indulgent side dishes.

We are always trying to find a new way to cook potatoes. Once a week I like to be reckless and have French fries – which are devilishly difficult to prepare at home. I have bought gallons of many kinds of oil, looking for the cleanest, lightest, most-able-to-withstand-the-most-heat. I have ordered duck fat twice. I have bought potato cutting machines, a mandoline, and have sharpened the knives trying to hand slice the perfect fry. I have several thermometers used for monitoring the smoke point of the oil. I have wiped down the stove top each and every time the oil errupts in geyser-like splatters from the cooking pot. It is frustrating, difficult, messy and expensive, and completely unsuccessful.

Some recipes call for soaking potatoes in cold water to encourage the starch to flow out of the raw potatoes. Some insist you do not soak. Some say dust with corn starch. Some call for frying the potato twice, to get the desirable Belgian-crisp frite effect. I seem to make the best fries when I use the store-bought, frozen, shoestring potato. And not even Ore-Ida. The cheapest store brand works best. What I really need is a professional Fry-o-later.

Compounding the frustration is my complete inability to coordinate the French fry trial and error cooking time with Mr. Friday’s delivery of hot food. When he grills, he uses a timer, so he always knows within a minute or two when the Saturday night meal will be ready to go on the table. With my scattershot fry experiments I can hold things up as I wait for the final ethereal moment of crispy fry perfection to emerge triumphant from the bath of hot, golden oil. Or I manage to bring a bowl of limp, sodden potatoes into the candlelight. Happy Saturday night!

Last week I gave up. I will leave the French fry cooking to the professionals – because I will never get that professional Fry-o-later through the front door. And maybe restrictions will lift sometime in the new year and we can all go out for dinner again. In the meantime, I tested a recipe from the New York Times that seemed daunting at first, and then I realized how easily it delivered some good, snappy and flavorful potatoes, without all the frustration, thermometers or grease splatters. It is easy, and practically hands-free.

I was stymied originally by one of the ingredients, which I could not find for love or money. Maybe you live near a Whole Foods or a fancier grocery store than is available to the rest of us mere mortals. I could not track down the pink peppercorns in “Salt-Baked New Potatoes With Pink-Peppercorn Butter”. And that was OK. Now I have an elusive item to track down, if I ever get out of town again.

The local Aldi had the cutest jewel-like new potatoes in a little string bag. Food Lion provided the two pounds of sea salt. I had the rosemary plants in the back yard. I substituted in coarsely-ground black pepper. (I also halved the recipe, because there are just 2 of us.)

Thank you, Gabrielle Hamilton for teaching me how to reclaim Saturday night dinner.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021483-salt-baked-new-potatoes-with-pink-peppercorn-butter?

“For the potatoes
2 pounds small, yellow-fleshed waxy potatoes (it’s fine if skins are red or purple or yellow)
2 pounds kosher salt
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary needles, stripped from their branch
2 tablespoons pink peppercorns
For the compound butter
1 tablespoon pink peppercorns
1 or 2 soft, velvety branches of rosemary (versus the very stiff, broom-bristle kind)
4 ounces salted Irish butter, tempered at room temperature until cool and waxy

PREPARATION
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash the potatoes.

In a large bowl, mix the salt, rosemary needles, peppercorns and 1 cup water together with your hands, crushing the peppercorns a little between your fingers and bruising the rosemary needles to release their sticky oil, making a moist, fragrant and pink-and-green speckled sand. (You might have to add a few splashes of water if the mixture needs more moisture to feel like wet sand.)

Transfer a little less than half this salt mixture into the bottom of a wide, shallow, heavy ovenproof skillet or casserole to make a salt bed about 1/2-inch thick.

Nestle the potatoes into the sand, close to one another but not quite touching, if possible.

Pack the rest of the salt mixture over the nestled potatoes, and rub and brush and smooth it with your hands until you have tightly encased the potatoes in a little salt sarcophagus. The rounded tops of the potatoes will just show as bumps under the salt cast.

Bake the potatoes for 30 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester easily pierces the potatoes and tests warm on your chin or the back of your hand. The salt casing will dry and harden like clay — and smell delicious while baking.

While the potatoes roast, prepare the compound butter: Grind the peppercorns in a mortar and pestle with the whole branches of rosemary to create an oily, coarse powder. Remove the bruised rosemary sprigs, shaking off any clinging pink peppercorns, and discard. (You just want to extract the oily flavor from the rosemary, not the needles themselves.) In a small bowl, mash the oily peppercorn powder with the salted butter using a fork until well blended.

To serve, rap the salt-packed potatoes forcefully on a sturdy surface that can handle it, to crack the salt crust from the force. A few solid raps will loosen the potatoes inside. If the cast needs a little more help, use a regular dinner knife like a spade to just pop open the salt crust along its fault lines. The potatoes are easily plucked from the dry salt. Set out with the compound butter in a small bowl on the side.”

While these potatoes will never be the French fries of my dreams, they are wholly delish. They were a delight to excavate from the salty crust. It was like a tiny little clambake, but with out the smelly clams or corn – just some steaming hot tiny potatoes. They went well with my filet, and with Mr.Friday’s salmon. Add these beauties to your repertoire when you want to dress up a Saturday night.

“It is the kind of Saturday night that torches your life for a few hours, makes it seem like something is happening.”
― Annie Proulx

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/frymaster-mj1cf-natural-gas-floor-fryer-60-80-lb/369MJ1CFMN.html

These are the golden days of fall. Clear skies, fluttering leaves, red dogwood berries, and cooler temperatures. I’m happily rummaging through my sweater drawer, eager for a wardrobe change. Food-wise we are ready for some novelty, too. Summer salads were all well and good, but I’m thinking of heartier fare – I’ll be bidding adieu to estival cucumber salads, and hello to the many permutations of the fortifying squash.

Summer squash – namely zucchini – has worn out its welcome. Winter squash is a blessing. I have been reading recipes for raw, roasted, baked, mashed, grilled, stewed, steamed and souped-up squash. And there are oodles more for the myriad varieties of squash: acorn squash, Delicata squash, butternut squash, Sweet Dumpling squash, Turban squash, Kabocha squash, spaghetti squash, buttercup squash, and lest we forget the obvious – pumpkin squash.

I rely on Food52 for its robust ideas. How brilliant is this? Raw butternut squash: https://food52.com/blog/25641-why-you-should-eat-butternut-squash-raw

For the chilly vegetarians in your COVID pod, this is a way to warm them up with the more delicate taste of roasted acorn squash and apples: https://www.makingthymeforhealth.com/roasted-acorn-squash-and-apple-soup/

Are you trying to cut back on your carbs? Spaghetti squash might be the answer. Of course, adding cheese and bacon, and a side of garlic bread won’t really benefit your lofty dietary goals, but it is delicious: https://www.thespruceeats.com/spaghetti-squash-carbonara-4693656

There are subtle differences among squash varieties. The kabocha (which means pumpkin in Japanese) squash and the buttercup squash look very similar – they are round and squat and green, after all. But the kabocha is rounder, and has a tree-like stem. The buttercup flesh is wetter, while the kabocha is more dense and easier to handle, and more desirable. Seek out the kabocha, accept no substitutes. https://heathereatsalmondbutter.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/gettin-krazy-with-kabocha/

The Delicata squash is cream-colored with orange or green stripes, and it has a delicate, edible rind. Pair it with apples for an aromatic side dish for pork chops: https://www.loveandlemons.com/roasted-delicata-squash/

I love a good, hearty stuffed squash. Many squash are perfectly suited for stuffing and you can stuff with abandon: https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2015/11/06/stuffed-winter-squash

Breads! Bake pumpkin bread often during the fall. Homemade pumpkin spices floating around the house will cheer you up and make you smile during these anxious COVID days, which drag on and on. You will feel a great sense of accomplishment, too. Right now, mindfulness and deep breathing are to be encouraged. Plus with a slice of pumpkin bread and a cup of tea, you can take a little afternoon break as you work from home. This is extra special pumpkin bread – it has chocolate! It will give you something to look forward to: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-bread/

Here is a handy overview of winter squashes: https://www.allrecipes.com/article/winter-squash-types/

“It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.”
― Alexander McCall Smith

It is finally starting to cool down, at night at least. I have placed a couple of cheerful pumpkins on the front porch and have replanted the window boxes with chrysanthemums and some pansies. My neighbor keeps rearranging her seasonal troupe of plastic skeletons and ghosts. It is beginning to look a lot like the seasons are going to change. Finally.

Living in the slower-paced smaller COVID world we can spend a day learning how to ferment pickle the slow, traditional way. Or we can quick pickle and get ready to binge Borgen on Netflix. Pickles might be the new COVID sour dough DIY project. Quick pickles can give us a little sunshine on the dinner table when fall’s cooler temperatures and darker nights make us long for summer’s warm sunshine.

My mother favored a tiny one-man butcher shop just around the corner from our house. It was the kind of place that stocked bread and Saltines and penny candy, as well as the hanging slabs of meat kept cold in an old-fashioned wooden refrigerator at the back of the store. While we waited for our pound of cubed steak or a half pound of sliced American cheese, we were sometimes allowed to choose a pickle out of the large barrel located near the front door. They were huge, manatee-sized pickles, which we ate sitting on the step of the shop, with juice running down our arms and onto the sidewalk. (In retrospect I wonder how my mother decided they would be a treat for us, because she didn’t like pickles. Every Thanksgiving she would put out a tiny WASPy bowl of sweet gherkins for a relish dish , but I never saw her eat any.)

I enjoy a cool cucumber salad, with slices of sweet Vidalia onion, and a scattering of Maldon salt is the perfect summer meal. Quick pickles are almost as good as an Indian Summer salad, or sitting on Benny’s Butcher Shop front step, chowing down on a big, honking pickle, watching the neighborhood parade by.

Cheater’s Pickles – From the New York Times
2 English cucumbers
2 tablespoons sugar
Handful of ice cubes
¼ cup rice vinegar, Champagne vinegar, apple cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar
Several pinches of flaky salt, such as Maldon
Several grinds of black pepper, optional
2 tablespoons snipped fresh dill, mint or chives, or a mixture, optional
½ Vidalia onion, sliced into thin half-moons, optional

1.Cut off the ends of the cucumbers and use the tines of a fork to draw long stripes down their lengths. Slice the cucumbers like bread-and-butter pickles, about 1/8-inch thick, and pile them into a large shallow bowl. Sprinkle the sugar over the cucumbers and stir in well. Scatter the ice cubes over the slices and cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap. Chill in the freezer for 1/2 hour.

2.Drain the cucumbers in a colander and pat dry with a clean kitchen towel. Put the cucumbers back in the bowl, sprinkle the vinegar over them evenly, and stir well. Add the salt and pepper, if using, and stir well to combine. Toss in the herbs and the onions, if using. Refrigerate until ready to serve. They will still be good the next day, though not quite as crisp.

Vivian Howard knows busy. Here is her recipe for quick pickles from PBS’s A Chef’s Life:
http://www.pbs.org/food/recipes/quick-pickled-cucumbers-onions/

Of course, our friends at Food52 have the answer for quick pickles, too: https://food52.com/recipes/18162-spicy-dill-quick-pickles

And here is a super quick recipe from Alice Waters for a medley of cucumbers, radishes and watermelon meant to be consumed immediately. Hurry up! Get cracking! We haven’t got anywhere to go!
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/salt-sugar-pickles-363479

“Each day the sun shone, the birds lingered, though the trees were turning, purely out of habit, and their rose and yellow and rust looked strange and beautiful above the brilliant green grass.”
― Elizabeth Enright

Originally I thought I would write a timely piece about tacos to cleverly coincide with National Taco Day, which is October 4. I am a week early, which should give you plenty of time to experiment and try every variation and permutation before the big day actually arrives. It is funny how the calendar keeps playing tricks on me this year. 2020 has been a weird one, to say the least.

Spring was lovely – it didn’t feel like a burden to stay safely at home and watch the daffodils emerge from corners of the garden. The tulips bloomed late and then disappeared in a week. The daffodils hung on for weeks. There were buckets of warm spring rain, which suited the hydrangeas. And the burgeoning mosquitoes. Summer was long and hot. The minute fall arrived (this past Tuesday at 9:30 AM, EDT) it cooled down and I reached for a sweater, which I have since tossed onto the back of a kitchen chair because it has gotten summer-warm again. Just because the calendar says it’s fall doesn’t guarantee that the weather will cooperate.

I used to love running out to the grocery store whenever the whim or the obscure recipes demanded it. Those were the days. Carefree. Mask-free. The wind blowing through my artfully coiffed locks. That was back when I could get haircuts. (I was taller and blonder and thinner in that Katmandu state of mind, too.) Covid-19 has required that we plan ahead, shop less frequently, stay home more, mask up and be mindful of others.

I like to think that I am a frugal New Englander; that I remember to “Use it up, wear it out, made it do, do without.” Somehow I always picture that phrase as coming to me from repeatedly reading Little Women. Surely Beth embroidered it as a lovely cross-stitched sampler that hung over her piano. Or Laura Ingalls Wilder muttered under her breath as she grimly churned butter in a sod-house in Minnesota. But no, it turns out that it was a phrase used in World War II, encouraging us to cheerfully make do with rationing. I guess I need to re-read Little Women.
https://www.eisenhowerfoundation.net/ikeducation/lesson-plans/use-it-wear-it-out-make-it-do-or-do-without#

We have been watching lots of videos, as have you. We fell into Netflix’s Chef’s Table recently. After watching an hour of grim pandemic news it is a relief to see images of people with passions and skills, living happy, pre-pandemic lives, puttering around their well-appointed kitchens making wonderfully bizarre foods. https://philly.eater.com/2019/4/15/18282518/south-philly-barbacoa-cristina-martinez-mexican-restaurant-philadelphia

I used to think narrowly about tacos. I have been amazed to find that tacos are not just browned ground beef, flavored by Old El Paso seasoning mix, served in fried, hard corn tortilla shells, topped with orange cheese. Now I know that tacos will save us during the pandemic, because they make ordinary leftovers exotic. Tacos are magic. I give to you some taco legerdemain:Nights when I have trouble sleeping, instead of worrying about the state of the world, over which I have no control, I try to think about what grooviness I can serve for dinner without going to the grocery store. What is lurking in the fridge or is tucked away in the pantry that can stretch the time until I need to mask up and tear through the grocery store.

Leftovers are our friends, and leftovers as tacos are friends with beer and chips. Tacos are better than casseroles. Consequently I have learned to keep a stash of corn tortillas in the fridge, which are the basis for tacos. (Sometimes I have flour tortillas, too. In a pinch we can make quesadillas, which make an easy, cheesy side dish.)

Most all of the time we have these items, too. Although I have to ask the Family Nose to test the sour cream container for viability:

Meat – leftover roast beef, steak, chicken, salmon, pork, lamb
Refried beans – try to get the vegetarian kind to avoid lard
Rice – we always make too much, so there is always a stash in the freezer
Corn or flour shell tortillas
Toppings
Shredded lettuce or cabbage
Chopped tomato
Chopped Vidalia onion, green onion, red onion
Radishes (some may lurk in the way back)
Cilantro (it is amazing how much fresh cilantro will add to a store-bought salsa)
Guacamole (I never have avocados, but you might)
Salsa
Salsa verde
Sour cream (from a couple of weeks ago, usually)
Shredded cheese – we mix mozzarella with cheddar
Jalapeños – we always have a jar of pickled jalapeños, but fresh pack a better kick, and will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks
Lime juice for a refreshing citrus jolt – bottled will do in a pinch
Olives
Hot sauce
Corn

I used to fry the tortillas to death, thinking that the packaged hard shells we found in the grocery store were authentic. Such foolishness! Now I either lightly fry the shells in a skillet or griddle and warm both sides of each tortilla until they are warm and soft. Or, to keep the stove top from getting splattered, I drape the shells over the wire oven racks in a 350°F oven for about 5-7 minutes. Some recipes say spray with oil, but really, spray? Aren’t we trying to save the planet? I say leave the shells in the oven until you have found the degree of crispiness you enjoy the most. Low cal, and ozone friendly

Good luck with your National Taco Day celebration. You can never rehearse too much, or too often. Just remember to keep some tortillas (and beer) in the fridge, and some extra chips in the pantry. Make yourself happy puttering in the kitchen.

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”
-Calvin Trillin

Salt Fat Acid Heat guru Samin Nosrat’s brilliant take: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/dec/29/slow-roasted-pork-taco-recipe-salted-caramel-cookies-samin-nosrat

Here is a vegetarian take on tacos, too: https://shaneandsimple.com/crunchy-baked-taco-shells/

Fish: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/grilling-tilapia-fish-tacos.html

https://everydaydishes.com/simple-food-recipes/leftover-roast-beef-street-tacos/

https://www.howsweeteats.com/2017/06/lets-set-taco-bar-fathers-day/