{"id":151559,"date":"2013-11-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracious-khorana.45-76-20-142.plesk.page\/localmex12013x111x1jalapeno-cornbread-buttermilk-biscuit-stuffing-htmlx1\/"},"modified":"2023-06-26T17:12:08","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T17:12:08","slug":"jalapeno-cornbread-buttermilk-biscuit-stuffing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localmilkblog.com\/2013\/11\/jalapeno-cornbread-buttermilk-biscuit-stuffing.html","title":{"rendered":"Jalape\u00f1o Cornbread & Buttermilk Biscuit Stuffing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Jalape\u00f1o<\/a><\/p>\n

I remember one year when I was living out in California, taking meager solace in the sea & more substantial solace in a dear, brilliant neuroscientist shortly after my divorce, I caught the red-eye back home for Thanksgiving. Just for Thanksgiving. I remember walking in the front door. It smelled wonderful, and all I remember, truly, is my mother smiling. She was, against all reason at the time, happy to see me. I wasn\u2019t in good shape. But there everything was, just as it had always been. My father was making his famed deviled eggs, my mother had the much revered \u201cCoca-Cola butt ham\u201d & her pumpkin pies ready to go, and we packed it all up in a wicker picnic basket and drove up Lookout Mountain to my Aunt Brenda & Uncle Jim\u2019s house, for their house is the province of the feast. My Aunt Brenda is the one who orchestrates the affair\u2014she makes the dressing & smokes a turkey out on the deck in their little Weber (it\u2019s a skill). She also makes all manner of other treats\u2014pecan pie & gravy not the least among them. There are usually no less than 5 pies at our Thanksgiving: buttermilk, pecan, chocolate, pumpkin, and usually something else\u2026apple? I don\u2019t know. I lose count. So much pie. Glorious.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I was approached by\u00a0Grains For Your Brain<\/a>, a resource provided by the Grains Food Foundation<\/a> that arms you with the science behind nutrition and information about how the food we eat affect our brains, about introducing you all to their nutritional resources, it was a no brainer (I\u2019m sorry, but that pun was intended). Because there are few things I\u2019m more for than carbohydrates and neuroscience. I couldn\u2019t think of a better way to do so than with a Thanksgiving dressing that features two of my favorite uses of grains: cornbread and buttermilk biscuits. I\u2019m one of those people that finds that the more I understand about the intricate dance between what I take into my body and how I think and feel, the more awe I experience each day & the more I\u2019m inspired to make good decisions about what I eat as well as not feel guilty about foods that some factions of our culture would have me believe are bad (I love you, bread!). I can\u2019t think of a better time than Thanksgiving to delve into knowing more about the relationship between the food I eat and the meaty, electric, ghostly mechanism that is my brain. I am immensely grateful for that amazing process. How fortunate we are that our bodies can run on dressing! Among, of course, other things too.<\/p>\n

\"Jalape\u00f1o<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Jalape\u00f1o<\/a><\/p>\n

Other than my obvious affinity for the pies there are only two other things I really care about on Thanksgiving: dressing & deviled eggs. You can change up tradition all you want; lord knows it\u2019s hard for me to leave well enough alone when it comes to the culinary. But I will not abide a Thanksgiving without dressing & deviled eggs. I can make a mean deviled egg. But I\u2019d never made dressing before. So, of course, I called my Aunt Brenda (who is to this day one of my main culinary consultants & the only other \u201creal\u201d cook in our family).\u00a0Torn out of a Bon Appetit in 1980, this is the dressing Brenda makes, the one I eat every year. It\u2019s moist and flavorful, not dry and bland like lesser dressings tend to be. It\u2019s important to me to learn the recipes from my family while they\u2019re still with me; I don\u2019t want to ever repeat the experience of losing so many \u00a0recipes when I lost my grandmother. Because they\u2019re more than recipes, they\u2019re memories and traditions. They\u2019re the spells of our womenfolk. And they are precious.<\/p>\n

\"Jalape\u00f1o<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Jalape\u00f1o<\/a><\/p>\n

So now, when it comes my turn to carry the torch, I\u2019ll be able to do so. Of course, I\u2019ve made a few tweaks. I added a little buttermilk (due to a pathological need to add buttermilk to everything? Also, I self-describe using the word pathological a little too often\u2026), and I changed onion to shallot because I\u2019m a shallot fiend and threw in a fresh jalape\u00f1o, \u00a0and I also added a hit of apple cider vinegar and sugar because I think those two things really brighten it up. They make it a little more than a side, something that could stand on it\u2019s own. Proud and homely in a bowl. Besides, I think stuffing should be integrated into non-Thanksgiving meals as well. I\u2019m already imagining the possibilities of different birds, herbs, spices, and vegetables. Also note, you can omit the gizzards & livers, but they add a special richness that I love.<\/p>\n

I realize that dressing is one of those truly personal recipes. It\u2019s because it is by it\u2019s very nature a family recipe. It\u2019s embedded in the one holiday that is devoted to the thing I love most: gathering around the table with people dear to you and partaking in wonder that is preparing edibles yielded by the earth\u2014by wind and rain and sun\u2014and eating them in order that we may blink and sigh. Shuffle our feet and fold our hands. Twirl a strand of hair around our finger. Everything we do is fueled by electrical impulses shooting through our bodies like stars. And that is fueled by the air we breath, the water we drink, and, of course, by the food we eat.<\/p>\n

\"Jalape\u00f1o<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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