I Dream of Dressing

With Thanksgiving dinner just a few short hours away, I’m waiting for the rolls to bake and dreaming of dressing. My family usually eats dressing only once a year, although I was able to talk my mother into making it last April for my birthday.

I guess I should make something clear from the beginning. What occupies my dreams and makes me salivate in anticipation more than any other Thanksgiving dish is dressing—not stuffing. Dressing is made of pretty much the same components of stuffing, but is cooked in a casserole dish (sometimes, two or three casserole dishes) and is not put inside the bird. I've always eaten either my mother's or my grandmother's dressing at Thanksgiving. I've never eaten a stuffed turkey, and don't particularly want to. Dressing is fragrant with celery, onions, sage, butter (there’s just no getting away from it), turkey or chicken stock, cornbread, and whatever other dried bread my mother chooses to use. Some years she uses focaccia cubes, other times she puts in homemade whole-wheat croutons. Dressing that is made in a casserole dish is golden and crunchy on top. You can't get that golden crunchiness in a stuffing that is cooked inside a turkey. To my mouth, stuffing is mushy and unappetizing.Unlike a lot of recipes I’ve seen and eaten, my mother’s dressing contains no eggs. Broth, butter, and sautéed celery and onions are all that is needed to bind it. You’ll not ever eat sausage, oysters, or chestnuts in dressing from her kitchen. And I promise you, you wouldn’t miss them.

The key to good dressing is its simplicity: basically dried bread, sage, and aromatic vegetables bound together with broth and butter. Dressing is crunchy and brown on top, moist but not mushy underneath. Touched with giblet gravy, it is truly something to be thankful for. If there is food in heaven, it must be Mom’s dressing. Several years ago I was deep into an obsession with baking Italian breads in October and November. Whatever was not eaten was made into croutons and dutifully passed on to my mother to work her special magic for that Thanksgiving’s dressing.

After the dinner, when we had a chance to look back on it and assign it a place among all the Thanksgivings we could remember, we all decided that it was the best Thanksgiving ever (in terms of food), and that the dressing was in large part responsible. I was so proud to have had a hand in the dressing that year. That is the only time I ever contributed to the dressing in any way. My mother is more than capable of making the best part of Thanksgiving dinner on her own. I try to help by making other things: rolls, cranberry sauce, and dessert. Making those things allows Mom to have room in her oven and time in her day to make the dressing. Mom doesn’t know it yet, but we are having pumpkin pie—it just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without it, after all. But if I had to choose between having a pumpkin pie or Mom’s dressing—a choice one should never have to make— the dressing would win out hands down. Happy Thanksgiving!