Trina's Kitchen: Thanksgiving in the Kitchen

Malanie e-mailed that she'll be doing her first Thanksgiving. Due to the pandemic, she won't be traveling out of her city and her two family members in that city are coming to visit her for Thanksgiving dinner as is her boyfriend and two of her friends. So, counting her, this will be dinner for six and she's nervous.

First, don't be. If anything does go wrong, blame it on the pandemic. I'm serious. Congress has certainly as an excuse to avoid doing their jobs, so why shouldn't you? The dressing is burned or overcooked? Pandemic! "Sorry, guys, due to the pandemic, the store was out of a key ingredient so the dressing is a little different than I'd like it to be, just pour a little extra gravy over it."

Second, Malanie's planning early enough there should be less last minute nerves.

Malanie's biggest concern? She has a four burner stove and a tiny oven. The turkey will be used in it for the bulk of Thanksgiving morning.

I e-mailed her about other things. She replied back that she had a microwave, she has a slow cooker and she has an instan-pot.

That's more than enough for a big Thanksgiving meal, if that's what you're going for -- and that's even with the turkey taking up the oven the entire time.

Let's start with the slow cooker. Use it for the dressing.

Ingredients

1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups chopped onion
2 cups chopped celery
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
12 ounces sliced mushrooms
12 cups dry bread cubes
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 ½ teaspoons dried sage
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon dried marjoram
1 ½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
4 ½ cups chicken broth, or as needed
2 eggs, beaten

Directions

Step 1

Melt butter or margarine in a skillet over medium heat. Cook onion, celery, mushroom, and parsley in butter, stirring frequently.
Step 2

Spoon cooked vegetables over bread cubes in a very large mixing bowl. Season with poultry seasoning, sage, thyme, marjoram, and salt and pepper. Pour in enough broth to moisten, and mix in eggs. Transfer mixture to slow cooker, and cover.
Step 3

Cook on High for 45 minutes, then reduce heat to Low, and cook for 4 to 8 hours.

Note

To make the slow cooker stuffing in the oven, prepare as directed using the full amount of broth. Transfer to a 9x13 inch baking dish or other large casserole dish. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes to 1 hour at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Tips

This recipe is designed for use in a standard 4 quart slow cooker. Larger slow cookers will also work.

Tips

Note

Nutrition Facts

Per Serving:

197 calories; protein 3.9g 8% DV; carbohydrates 16.6g 5% DV; fat 13.1g 20% DV; cholesterol 53.8mg 18% DV; sodium 501.7mg 20% DV.

Your four oven burners? Use one to cook the gravy. Use one to cook the spinach recipe below:

Ingredients

Kosher salt

3 large bunches spinach, washed and trimmed

3 cloves garlic, chopped

Extra-virgin olive oil, for sauteing and serving

Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Cut the thickest stems off the greens and rinse the leaves well in the sink using lots of fresh water.
Add the spinach in the water and blanch them, stirring continuously for about 1 minute, then strain them and rinse immediately with cold water so they stop cooking.
When the greens are cool enough to handle, squeeze all the water out of them and lay them on a cutting board where you'll randomly chop them in big sections.
In a large pan, over a medium-high heat, quickly saute the garlic in a couple of tablespoons olive oil, then add the greens. Quickly toss around the greens, adding a sprinkle more olive oil, if needed.
Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve it up! You want to preserve the crunchy bite of the fresh vegetable.

Gravy, spinach? That's two burners. Use a third for green beans:

Ingredients

1 pound fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces

1 tablespoon water

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup sliced shallots (about 2 medium)

3/4 pound assorted fresh mushrooms, (ie: button, baby bella, shiitake, oyster, chanterelle), sliced

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Put green beans in a microwave-safe bowl with the water. Cover tightly and microwave on high for 4 minutes. Carefully remove the cover, drain in a colander, shaking off any excess water, and set aside.
While the beans are cooking, heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large nonstick skillet. Add the shallots and cook, stirring, until softened slightly, about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until the water they release has evaporated and they begin to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the green beans and stir to combine and rewarm. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

That's three burners. There's a fourth left for whatever. Let's move over to the instant pot for potaoes au grautin:

Ingredients

2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled
1 cup chicken broth
¼ cup diced onion
1 tablespoon parsley flakes
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ cup evaporated milk
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
½ cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Directions

Step 1

Slice potatoes into 1/4-inch thick slices using a mandolin. Rinse under cold water to remove excess starch.
Step 2

Turn on a multi-functional pressure cooker (such as Instant Pot®). Add potatoes, chicken broth, onion, parsley, garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper. Close and lock the lid. Select high pressure according to manufacturer's instructions; set timer for 1 minute. Allow 10 minutes for pressure to build.
Step 3

Release pressure carefully using the quick-release method according to manufacturer's instructions, about 5 minutes. Unlock and remove the lid.
Step 4

Add evaporated milk, Cheddar cheese, and Monterey Jack cheese to the pot. Gently stir until cheese is melted. Transfer potatoes to an oven-safe baking dish.
Step 5

Set an oven rack about 6 inches from the heat source and preheat the oven's broiler to low. Broil for 4 minutes or until top is brown and bubbly. Remove potatoes from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes to thicken.

Nutrition Facts

Per Serving:

265 calories; protein 12g 24% DV; carbohydrates 30.3g 10% DV; fat 11g 17% DV; cholesterol 35.3mg 12% DV; sodium 589.6mg 24% DV.

So along with one burner free, we've still got the microwave. You can use the microwave to make mac and cheese. If you're making instant potatoes, you can use it for that as well. And there's plenty of time to use it for both, one right after the other.

So if you did the above, you could make: Turkey (oven), spinach (burner), green beans (burner), gravy (burner), potatoes au grautin (instant pot), stuffing (slow cooker), mac and cheese (microwave), instant potatoes (microwave) and have one burner left for whatever -- corn on the cob? That's a full meal and then some. Rolls can be popped in the oven right after the turkey's pulled out -- remember to butter them on top before putting them in the oven so that they'll look wonderful. You can buy a pie or two and certainly you can ask guests to bring a dessert.

Now you don't have to make the above -- I'm not saying: Here is what you MUST make. I'm just trying to show how, using the stove top, the oven, the microwave, the instant pot and the slow cooker, you've got a lot of options. You can make a solid Thanksgiving dinner with just the oven and four burners. The food is enriched by the company, remember that.

I want to add something else. I was talking to Elaine and she reminded me of C.I.'s thing which is so obvious that I think we should all do it. For years, C.I. made it a point to learn one dish a year -- at least one. If you're a new cook and would do that with Thanksgiving, imagine how you would have ten options in ten years.

The most important thing to remember for your first Thanksgiving meal is that you don't need to have a table overflowing with food. You can have a solid meal with turkey (or ham or chicken) and two sides, a salad and some rolls.

If you start feeling overwhelmed while cooking, take a break and, on the break consider if you need to but back on your plans, do a dish or two less?

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Friday:

Friday, November 6, 2020. And the count goes on -- yes, the count goes on.

"Here we go again" is how Kathleen Wallace opens her column that went up at COUNTERPUNCH on Thursday. Yeah, I know. Kind of familiar -- see Wednesday morning's "Here we go again (Ava and C.I.)" but we -- Ava and I -- were true to our own voices, so no one can really copy us though, goodness knows, many have tried and failed over the years. Hey, IN THESE TIMES, what happened to that entertainment media coverage? No, it's not as easy as it looks -- especially if you're trying to offer a feminist perspective but, hey, thanks for playing.

And playing's all Kathleen Wallace is doing. I planned to highlight her but I read and read and it just got worse and worse. 'COVID didn't register!'

Yeah, it did but your head's been up your ass so long that you never got what was going on. The center-left meme was that Covid-19 meant the country would turn away from Donald Trump collectively and now here comes Kathleen to tell us, "I also thought covid would be a gamechanger, but the Trump supporters view the shutdowns as the enemy, not the virus."

Why admit at the top of your column that you were wrong and just cling to your insulting beliefs that got you into this mess to begin with?

For months, the media and much of the left has lived in an artificial world that was far from reality-based. There are people on the right who just see the pandemic as something that's been overblown and/or some sort of plot but that's true of some on the left as well.

What no one seems to get about a number of Donald Trump supporters is that they're not as stupid as the MSNBC talking point crowd.

They know damn well that the hissy fits over what Donald did in February and Joe Biden's claims of what he would do are largely nonsense. Reality, in February and March, Joe and his campaign were telling people -- in the midst of the pandemic -- to go to the polls and vote. Joe presented no plan for a response to the pandemic.

Did Donald flounder? Yes, he did. But many people remember that so did the CDC. Many remember when we were told there was no point in wearing masks Then we were told to wear masks. People can look at those events and they can see that everyone was learning as they went along.

The Democratic Party leaders tried to weaponize Covid for the election. And you got a lot of childish and petty little brats -- who need to grow the hell up, quite frankly -- reinventing the narrative the same way they tried their neoliberal reinvention of government in the 90s (that was the Clintonesque destruction of the safety net and you can refer to the book REINVENTING GOVERNMENT if you're late to that party). It was disgusting to see people try to profit politically off the pandemic.

And maybe if you did something other than 'learn' about the world from MSNBC, you'd have known that. We spoke to group after group and heard this called out repeatedly. I'd be surprised if out of the hundreds in the last two months, more than 21 of them were Trump supporters. The bulk identified as Democrats (though many were clear that they would not be voting in the election due to Joe's position on fracking or his assault of Tara Reade or both). And they were appalled by the way the pandemic was being used as political football. Nancy Pelosi's refusal to provide a second stimulus also fell under that umbrella. People were outraged by that and saw that as yet another example of a party wanting your vote but refusing to do anything to get it. And then came Joe's I-promise-you-nothing campaign and you had a political party that stood for nothing other than trying to shape opinion.

I don't know why, in the face of the rebuke that is this election, you'd say, "I got is wrong but let me tell you about all the other things I believe without any basis in fact and let's pretend like they are right."

Throughout the last four years, opinions have been presented as facts and this from the 'neutral' media? It rained is a fact. What someone felt about the rain is an opinion -- that seems to confuse a number of so-called reporters at various corporate outlets.

Wallace really shouldn't write a word. She's a stupid and sexist fool. Doubt me? Note this passage:

This falls completely on Obama and the corrupt DNC machinery. As you all know, prior to Super Tuesday, Obama pulled the strings of the other primary candidates, creating a situation that unearthed a most inorganic Biden victory. He got them to pull out and support Biden en masse. Though Obama was reported to have said “don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up”, he opted to intervene in the democratic process of a legitimate primary. Elizabeth Warren (oh don’t upset her with snake emojis) helped out too, making sure the progressive vote was splintered. It makes you wonder what was going on there. She sells her soul for no payout, it seems.

Did Elizabeth help out? That's an opinion but if you think she helped out and you also think this falls completely on Barack -- your words -- then why is it that you seen to blame them equally? That's what you're doing in that paragraph. Four sentences calling out Barack and three calling out Elizabeth.

And note the sexism, Elizabeth is the one who "splintered" the progressive vote. Not Bernie. As a man, apparently, the progressive vote belonged to Bernie. As a woman, apparently, Elizabeth was supposed to sacrifice and step aside. Was this the election or post-WWII America? Go home, girls, the men are back!

What an offensive piece of trash Wallace is.

Again, there are facts and there are opinions. It's a fact that they both sought the nomination. It's an opinion that one should have dropped out (we never called for either to drop out -- we did note that people needed to back off and stop the sexism against Elizabeth and that failing to do so would only hurt Bernie). Elizabeth and/or her supporters could argue throughout the primary that Bernie lost last time and he'd lose again. They could have argued that Bernie had the nomination stolen from him last time and that he'd have it stolen again.

They could have pointed out the reality that Elizabeth stood up to Joe in the debates while Bernie undercut his own talking points and his own stands with 'my friend Joe' comments.

They could have pointed to the attacks during the primary from Bernie on women like Zephyr Teachout. What did Zephyr do? Oh, yeah, she wrote the truth about Joe Biden's record -- a record that Bernie was running against. And Zephyr was rewarded for that well researched and well thought out column by being attacked and disowned by Bernie and his campaign. Or the backstabbing of Briahna Joy Gray. If you were shocked by Bernie's dismissive attitude towards Briahna, so sorry that you didn't know s**t as usual.

It wasn't surprising in the least. I sat through those awful VA hearings the Senate Committee held under Bernie's leadership (I also sat through Daniel Akaka and Patty Murray's hearings which set the standards for any Senate hearings). I saw Bernie's patronizing attitudes towards women -- women on the committee, women testifying before the committee. A group of women veterans and I spent one post-hearing lunch together counting up all the sexist terms Bernie had used in the hearing and all the ways he'd been patronizing to women but never to men.

Did Bernie tell Elizabeth that he didn't think a woman could win?

We don't know. But those of us who have seen Bernie in action do know that it wouldn't be a surprise. And, when that rumor came up, we said here, check the archives, whether it was said or not, it shouldn't be the end of the world. The statement, as reported, was that someone didn't think the country would elect a woman. That's an opinion and it's an opinion of what others think. It wasn't a statement, as reported, that a woman shouldn't be president or that Bernie said he wouldn't vote for a woman. It was a politician looking at the landscape and trying to read it and coming to a conclusion.

Our advice was to leave it alone and that was partly because we knew Bernie's past very well. Just leave it alone and let it fade. But his supporters couldn't do that or wouldn't do that. And Bernie couldn't either and he had to give the story new life by confronting Elizabeth at the end of the debate. As she was heard saying, "You called me a liar." And that is what he did.

None of this is written as an Elizabeth lover. Had she gotten the nomination, I would've voted for her. I probably would've voted for anyone other than Joe. I certainly would've voted for Beto, Julian, Marianne . . .

But I am not an Elizabeth Warren fan nor am I even a supporter. I don't mean a supporter or her presidential campaign, I mean a supporter of her public work. I think she's done a very poor job on a lot of things. I would include that the time to let us know that a program isn't working is long before the money's all been distributed. I think she's been very dishonest about her past -- I'm referring to the Republican thing, not the Native American aspect. Trina was very familiar with Elizabeth Warren and her politics and the minute Elizabeth ran for the Senate, Trina was telling you she wasn't all that and that she had started out a Republican. Trina lives in Boston and knew exactly what Elizabeth was and wasn't.

And we called out Elizabeth through out the campaign including when she decided to use impeachment as a campaign booster. Didn't work for her.

So Elizabeth's not perfect and I'm not saying she is. I'm not a supporter of Elizabeth Warren. But, please note, Kathleen Wallace, when I'm writing about what happened and trying to explain it, I'm not just offering a one-sided version of a narrative that rescues all my beloveds and paints everyone else as the devil.

Kathleen is unhappy with Bernie's loss. But she's not going to blame him apparently. So she'll blame Barack (who does deserve a portion of the blame, he clearly pulled strings behind the scenes) and she'll blame Elizabeth but she won't blame Bernie.

Here's what Kathleen thinks is a critique of Bernie:

This is all not to say that Sanders isn’t clearly at fault in this situation as well. He embraced the sheepdog role and after the first Lucy football incident, he should have run as an Independent if he was serious about truly winning the presidency. How many people who couldn’t afford it plunged what assistance they could into his campaign? It’s a pretty craven and bitter move to do to those young idealists. At some point, you have to hold to your convictions. Say what you will, but these scary Trumpers do hold to their (often toxic convictions) and it’s powerful. They win that way. Bernie has done much to push progressive ideals and has done well introducing them to a large audience, but he also has been instrumental in ripping the hearts out of those who truly believed in his platform. How can you be for the ideas that he offered and still hit the campaign trail for a Biden? Sure, sure the bigger threat thing is what is always given as the excuse— but he likely knew exactly what would happen this second time around. He coalesced progressive support around him during the primary, keeping a trend towards any third party leanings down. He was an instrumental cog in all of this….again.

So his portion of the blame, per Kathleen, is the sheepdog role -- a role he played after he dropped out. And his other one was refusing to run as an independent. Again, that would happen after he dropped out.

Bernie, in her mind, made no mistakes until then. And the mistakes she attributes to him feed into her belief that he's a good guy. He may very well be a good person but she doesn't offer that possibility for Donald Trump or Barack Obama or Elizabeth Warren or anyone she disagrees with. Are we not supposed to notice that?

As the pandemic was making clear the need for Medicare For All, who dropped out?

Bernie. It was the perfect time to speak out about his platform and how, look around at the people in need in this crisis, this is why we need Medicare For All.

But he didn't do that. He grumbled about David Sirota and Nina Turner when they were busting their asses for him. He called out Zephyr and, after the election, Briahna. This is leadership?

It's whoring.

And you could float the idea that it's another reason Elizabeth didn't drop out. She was running against a man who did nothing. Naming post offices, that was Bernie's Congressional accomplishment. Yes, I started that talking point but I didn't do it to help Hillary (I actually favored Martin in 2016) and I didn't realize the campaign would run with his lack of accomplishments in Congress -- both the House and the Senate. I was just applying the same standard to all. It's not my job to fluff and flatter.

And Elizabeth does have some accomplishments in the Senate and she might have stayed in the campaign for that reason.

More to the point, she doesn't need a reason to stay in other than she wants to. She's not stealing anything from anyone by making a forceful case for herself.

I'm raking my brain for when we hear this sort of talk about a man. Other than the lunatic ravings of Al Gore's self-appointed online defender/mistress Bob Somerby (in his attacks on Bill Bradley), I'm not remembering it.

If Bernie's campaign was so weak that it couldn't survive another person campaigning openly, then it wasn't strong at all.

Now it's another thing to suffer through what the DNC did to him in 2016 and the strings Barack pulled this go round. Those were not done publicly, they were largely hidden.

But Elizabeth wanted the nomination and she sought it publicly. If Bernie couldn't handle that, I don't know that he could have handled the nomination.

Wallace is worried about Pete Buttigieg and that made me laugh the most at her column. Barack was the shiny, new toy in 2008. Pete can't be that. He tried to be it in 2019 and 2020 but it didn't happen. And in 2024 or 2028, he's not going to be anything but another fat assed male politician. Am I the only one whose noticed how much weight he's put on? Or how fat his face is? Barack was shiny and new with his thin trim self -- to the point that people spoke of anorexia. True or not, he did look lean and hungry and it gave his words an impact that a soft and fat politician just wouldn't have. Barack looked lean and hungry and that amplified his message of change. When roly-poly Pete lumbers out on stage in four years or eight years, a call to change from a fat cat politician will ring as hollow as it always does.

I kept searching her column -- which was sent into the public account by fifteen different people -- or at least fifteen different e-mail accounts -- for something to praise and include. I thought I was going to from the byline. But it's a really bad column. And don't think you're brave by noting Joe grabbing a woman's ass and including a mention of #MeToo if you can't mention Tara Reade. Tara told the truth. Kathleen did mention Anita Hill. It's safe to do that, isn't it?

Thing is, I was around back then and it wasn't safe. But people -- women and men -- wouldn't let it die. We didn't walk away from it. And these same people today, we're not walking away from Tara Reade. Joe will never live Tara down. It's the sort of thing the media can dismiss for a year or so but it's the sort of thing that festers and grows and that becomes so firm that even the cowardly -- Kathleen, for example -- finally feel that they can speak out about it -- the way she feels she can support Anita all these decades later.

I wanted to praise Kathleen. But she wrote a sexist article which opens with her admitting she was wrong but never goes on to try to attempt to re-evaluate any of the prejudices and mistaken beliefs that led to her being so wrong.

Most of all, I'll never support any argument -- made by a man or a woman -- that a woman's role is to sacrifice her goals and dreams so that a man can get ahead. I will always stand against that sort of nonsense.

In Iraq, Dilan S. Hussein (RUDAW) reports:

Iraqi President Barham Salih on Thursday officially signed recent electoral reforms into law, dividing provinces into smaller voting constituencies for the 2021 election.

"The law was passed after a long debate. The reform of the electoral law was a national demand to secure Iraqis' right to choose their representatives without fear of forgery, manipulation and the exertion of pressure on voters," said Salih.

"I call upon all state institutions to swiftly fulfill the required conditions for conducting early fair and free elections," he added. "Electoral corruption is a serious scourge that threatens the peace and stability of our community as well as the country's economic viability."

This would appear to mean that elections are moving forward (June 6, 2021). THE MEDIA LINE notes a possible snag, "Yet a dispute about how to replace retiring judges of the Federal Supreme Court, which rules on constitutional challenges, needs to be settled prior to elections." Of the new law, AP explains, "The new law changes each of the country’s 18 provinces into several electoral districts and prevents parties from running on unified lists, which has in the past helped them easily sweep all the seats in a specific province. Instead, the seats would go to whoever gets the most votes in the electoral districts."

Karen Steele has a letter to the editors of THE BALTIMORE SUN which includes:

Oct. 22 was the tenth anniversary of the publication of the Iraq War Logs (“Julian Assange is no hero,” May 15, 2019). The documents revealed war crimes, more than 15,000 previously undocumented civilian casualties and evidence that the military killed innocent people and mislabeled them as enemies for statistical purposes.

These revelations were only possible because Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning acted out of conscience, and WikiLeaks bravely published them after the Washington Post and New York Times hesitated. The coverage won countless awards, but also led to Ms. Manning spending years in prison and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange facing an unprecedented 175-year sentence.

Two more things. Time permitting, I'd like to explore the good and the bad about Brad Bannon's HILL column -- explore it this weekend. Second, this weekend, NOW and The Feminist Majority have a virtual conference:

You won’t want to miss an up-to-the-minute feminist analysis of the 2020 election. Join the Feminist Majority and the National Organization for Women (NOW) for the last in a series of free virtual conferences this Saturday November 7^th at 12:30pm ET on the power of the feminist vote and what is at stake as a result of the 2020 election.

REGISTER TODAY!

Our exciting plenary session will feature an election analysis panel led by Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal, featuring feminist pollster Celinda Lake of Lake Research and Barbara Arnwine, president and founder of Transformative Justice and its national voter protection project.

The second panel discussion will feature feminist political action committees that propelled feminist candidates to victory chaired by Bear Atwood, vice president of NOW. The keynote address will be delivered by Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California. The conference will close with a discussion with NOW president Christian Nunes on where we go from here.

You won’t want to miss this opportunity to engage with important feminist leaders and organizers who are working to protect the decades of progress made and are paving the way for even more feminist victories ahead. Register now!

If you have already registered please look for an email from NOW Conference 2020 that contains a link to join and if you haven’t registered, please do so now! If you have any issues registering or joining the conference please email NOW@scottcircle.com.

For equality,