Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton

The very best part of Thanksgiving is the day-after leftover turkey sandwich. We like ours on good white bread slathered with mayonnaise, a spoonful of turkey drippings or gravy, and cranberry gelée; a leaf or two of crisp lettuce; and a pile of thinly sliced breast meat seasoned with lots of salt and pepper. A cold glass of milk is our beverage of choice, although there may be a splash of last night’s Champagne left on the refrigerator door (with a small silver spoon hanging in the neck of the bottle to preserve precious bubbles). Better stick with milk. 

Our friend Brian Beadle is kind of a finicky eater -- he’s a meat and potatoes man. You could say he is sort of a "spuds specialist." His mashed potato recipe is fairly standard but his trick is to slip tiny pats of cold butter down into and throughout the hot potatoes when they are in their serving dish. The butter melts into hidden pools buried deep in the mashed potatoes to be discovered with each delicious forkful.

Baking the galette on a pizza stone ensures a very crisp bottom crust. But a baking pan or cookie sheet will work just fine too. Patch any little tears in the crust with extra pieces of dough and smooth them with a wet finger so the juices won’t leak out of the galette. Don’t fret when you are folding over the dough; if the edges are a little rough, they will only add to the rustic character of this delicious dessert.

We came up with this soup years ago simply by using two things we always have plenty of at Thanksgiving: turkey stock and leftover mashed potatoes. Now we make even this when we don’t have leftover potatoes. This soup is quite delicate and soothing after all the Thanksgiving gluttony.

We use browned flour, cooked until it is the color of a wooden spoon, to add rich deep flavor while it thickens our gravy.

We prefer the sweet flavorful flesh of the kabocha squash over any other pie pumpkin. The chestnut-like texture of this pie makes it especially toothsome.

Even people who aren’t big pumpkin pie fans will like this genteel version. Light, delicate, and sweet, it is a recipe from a kinder, gentler time. Its very name—“chiffon”—evokes a sheer and floaty fabric, a long way from today’s sturdy Spandex. Even after a hearty holiday meal, we find there’s always room for a small slice of this lovely pie.

Afra Lineberry, Agee to her family, opened The Jerre Anne Bake Shoppe in St. Joe, Missouri, in 1930. It was the last stop on the trolley line. Conductors would leave their cars running while they ran into Agee’s for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. “It seems like I just always knew how to make a good pie crust. It may take a little practice for some, but the only time to get excited about a pie crust is when you’re eating it,” Agee used to say. The little shop grew to be a smashing success, and by 1990, with Geraldine Lawhon (Agee’s niece) running the place, it was selling 625 pies at Thanksgiving alone. Sadly, The Jerre Anne closed its doors in 2008. When you eat Agee’s pie, send your thanks heavenward.

We’re cooks who have endless patience for “process.” But when a recipe calls for 5 cups of peeled chestnuts, we know we’re in for some serious labor: scoring their skins with ×’s, roasting them, peeling them while they are still hot, then removing the fuzzy inner skins. Life is too short. We cut ourselves some slack and reach for jars of those nice already peeled French chestnuts—they’re delicious.

Use a good port, red wine or even a Madeira if that’s what you have on hand. Cranberries have so much natural pectin that this sauce will set up even if you don’t refrigerate it.