Thanksgiving memories

You want to talk about holiday pressure. On the 20th, the San Francisco Chronicle published a letter from me about my Grandma Rita's secret ingredient for stuffing, namely, a loaf of Columbo sourdough bread, carefully aged on top of the refrigerator until it transformed into a nearly indestructible granite-like mass.

Now the rest of my extended family is on my case to come up with the rest of the recipe!

Truth be told, I have tinkered with Grandma's original formula so much, I don't remember exactly how she did it. The trickiest part is turning the bread back into an edible substance, which I've always achieved by sauteéing the jagged shards of pulverized loaf with butter and olive oil.

Grandma was such a virtuoso, though, I don't think she ever took any such precautions. She just sledgehammered the Columbo with whatever blunt instrument was handy, mixed it up with Schillings poultry spice, chopped celery, onion and parsley and a raw egg or two. It went into the bird with the consistency of wet gravel, but by the time it came back out it was the best stuffing you ever ate.

The other thing I do different is I always put in the giblets, chopped extremely fine. Grandma never put giblets in the stuffing or gravy but would instead send them home with guests for use as a hangover cure.

Kurt "big daddy" True
25 november 2004