My Ordinary Life: Thanksgiving and my Martha Stewart Dutch oven

"... I think you should invest in one since the Martha Stewart's 5.5 Qt Dutch oven (they call it a casserole on the Macy's website) is on sale for $39.99 this Tues/Wed before 1PM. I also received a coupon in yesterday's flyer for $10 off any $25 purchase, so you could actually buy that Dutch oven for $29.99. Crazy price!!! Maybe not the same quality as Emile Henry or Le Creuset, but for that price, I would definitely buy Martha Stewart's."

My sister is coming to visit at Christmas and she was trying to persuade me to purchase a Dutch oven so she could cook for my kids the way she liked. I had a vague idea of what a Dutch oven looked like, since I've absorbed a few Cooking Channel shows by osmosis (when the kids have the TV on and I'm working next to them), but I'm the sort of cook who doesn't care for gadgets and to me, a Dutch oven might be considered a gadget, as opposed to a bona fide kitchen tool. For years I've subsisted without a toaster, a blender, or a Cuisinart processor on my kitchen counter. If you were to divide cooks into two camps... the exact and the approximate, I would be the latter and my sister the former. Whereas I could easily substitute chicken for turkey in a recipe and never measure my ingredients, Midol would actually count the number of proscuitto slices she uses when making appetizers. I don't know if this has anything to do with the fact that she's an accountant with an engineering degree, but hey, I was a math major and I'm pretty imprecise! But like most women, I'm a sucker for anything with a reduced price and when I found out the Martha Stewart Dutch oven/casserole came in pretty colors, I was sold. You could choose from a traditional chili pepper red, a funky apple green, or a cheery yellow that had a hint of mustard in it so the color wasn't too bright or drab. There was also a medium navy perfect for a male chef, except I didn't know any males in my life that would feel excited about a Dutch oven. Oh well! Off I went to Macy's on my mission, intending to buy three – one for me, one for my mom, and one for an undetermined recipient – you know how it is when you like something enough that you'd buy ahead of time and occasions?

Anyhow, after picking out the colors I wanted, I discovered that it was impossible to carry three Dutch ovens at the same time. Even standing in line with just one proved to be a difficult task. I must've been seriously deluded to think just because Giada De Laurentiis -- she with the tiny lollipop figure and the 19-inch waist -- could (seemingly) effortlessly carry an enormous cast iron casserole filled with her culinary creations around her set with a smile, I could basically do the same. The line at Macy's Housewares on that day wrapped around the department one and a half times and I finally had to set the carton that contained my Dutch oven on the floor and kick it along as the line inched miserably toward the register. I must have looked pretty pathetic! After escaping to a shorter line at Wedding Registry, I gave up on the idea of going back for the other two Dutch ovens and lugged my singleton home... down the stairs of Macy's, across the mall's parking lot, and finally into my driveway. I was beat!

Once back home I immediately wrote my sister to complain:

"Oh my God! Was going to buy 3 dutch ovens to hit the $100 mark in order to use my $25 off coupon. The line to pay was a mile long! I could not carry 3 pots at once... way too heavy. Ended up getting only one in the apple green color."

She nonchalantly wrote back:

"I know. I bought one and had trouble walking it back to the garage which was only 10 minutes away. I like that apple green color too, but my friend suggested red so I got that instead."

Huh?!! Why didn't Midol tell me that before? She knew she had been able to finish a 5-hour mountain hike whereas I couldn't even manage 5 minutes of exercise, and yet she'd neglected to tell me she had trouble with the Dutch oven's weight, too!

Well, looking on the bright side, the Dutch oven did have some redeeming qualities, including the fact that it is oven-to-table ready, being made of beautiful and durable enameled cast iron. Besides, Midol had promised to make a few good dishes for the kids when she's in Cali... pork tacos (really tender pork shoulders), Vietnamese chicken curry, parpadelle with bolognese sauce, chili, just to name a few. She'd better make good on her promise!

I decided to test out my Dutch oven at Thanksgiving. We were going to prepare a side dish of scalloped potatoes to go with the turkey... our first ever homemade turkey in the 30+ years that we've been in the States, in response to my kids' complaint, "How come we always ate Vietnamese food even at traditional American holidays like Thanksgiving?" Still, I thought it was too risky for me to attempt cooking a turkey from scratch when I've always resisted recipes that involved a cooking thermometer before, so I deferred that task to my brother Doca, who gamely took on the challenge and actually tried out for the first time a citrus-infused champagne turkey recipe that he looked up online without obsessing over whether he might've failed and left us with no back-up holiday entree whatsoever. Maybe I should learn to think like a man!

Fortunately, both the turkey and the scalloped potatoes came out great (see pics below) and the kids gobbled up (pun intended) everything on our holiday menu. We even had a turkey cake for dessert, since my niece Gisele happened to be a Thanksgiving baby and her birthday was also being celebrated at our family gathering.