Before she left for a two year adventure in London, our food editor Kristen Eppich created a throwback Thanksgiving feast.
Nostalgic feelings are what make us want to recreate the past and, for me, the best way to do that is through food. I decided to revisit a Thanksgiving of my childhood (which falls squarely in the 1980s) and update the dishes for today.
In honor of my mom, I’m cooking the turkey upside down, the way she did then — and still does now. I cook it this way, too, but I’ve never shared the recipe in H&H because, well, the finished product isn’t exactly magazine-ready. But it’s so succulent, you’ll forget you ever cooked it any other way. The juices from the dark meat run into the breast to make it amazingly moist and tender. And when I made my family’s favorite sides, the dishes were either too rich, too sweet or too salty for the way we eat now. So I made a few tweaks — and they’re still just as comforting.