Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join more than 30,000 food lovers and subscribe.
How to Pull Off an Epic Thanksgiving Without Losing Your $h!t!
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Hello there Reader, Thanksgiving doesn't have to leave you cursing like a sailor. (Although, if you ever heard Mama Leite muttering in Portuguese while wrestling a 22-pound turkey into submission, you might think otherwise.) As someone who's hosted more holiday dinners than my youthful countenance would suggest―some of which ended with me hiding in the basement, clutching a bottle of wine, and questioning my life choices―I've learned a thing or two about keeping my sanity intact. The One will back me up on this, especially after That One Year We Shall Never Speak Of Again when I nearly burned down the house. But I digress. What I've learned is mastering Thanksgiving is all about strategy. And, unlike how I usually cook―which The One likens to a tornado in an apron―this requires that dreaded word: planning. Allow me to share with you my hard-won five-day plan that'll keep you from ending up in the fetal position behind the washing machine. (Not that I know anything about that.) My Free Foolproof Five-Day Countdown
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Leite's Culinaria
Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join more than 30,000 food lovers and subscribe.
Hi Reader, June always sneaks up on me.One minute I’m standing in the kitchen making soup like some Old Testament widow preparing for a hard winter, and the next I’m barefoot on the back steps with a bowl of cherries, wondering if dinner can legally consist of cheese, tomatoes, and whatever’s left in the crisper drawer.(Answer: yes. Absolutely yes.)When I was a kid, June meant school was out, shoes were optional, and dinner got pushed later and later because nobody wanted to come inside yet....
Hi Reader, I trust a dinner more after other people have invited it into their real lives.Not the tidy test-kitchen version. Actual life, with someone doing homework at the table, someone asking where the charger is, someone “not that hungry” who then eats half the pan.That’s when a recipe proves itself.These are the popular dinners readers made, saved, repeated, and came back to talk about. Which, to me, is the good stuff. Compliments are lovely, of course. I’m not dead inside.But a recipe...
Hi Reader, I never had to be persuaded to love seafood.Some people come to seafood later, cautiously, with a fork in one hand and suspicion in the other. I came to it early and naturally, the way one comes to sunlight or sarcasm.In a Portuguese family, seafood isn’t exotic, aspirational, or reserved for anniversaries. It’s dinner. It’s memory. It’s good olive oil, garlic, parsley, a hot pan, and the understanding that if the fish is fresh, your job is not to meddle.That lesson has served me...