As a food writer, you must know that Thanksgiving is right up there for me when it comes to holidays — it’s the ultimate food holiday. I’m not cooking much this year (Christmas is my cooking holiday in our family) but you can always trust Matthew and me to bring a good-looking appetizer and mix a mean cocktail. Check out our recipes for both later in the newsletter.

If you want the best Thanksgiving advice you can get, I’ll direct you to the best expert I know: Sam Sifton. I’ll likely be celebrating the new bar-going holiday, “Thanksgiving eve,” later tonight with a glass of wine. But before that, a few things.

I’d like to recognize every one of you who has supported me in this new journey as an independent food writer in Omaha. Thank you. So many of you open this email each week, read my words and send me kind ones in return. I can’t wait to share much, much more with you in the year to come, including a new website and podcast and an end-of-2019 wrapup different from any I’ve ever written.

I’m thankful for all the excellent meals I ate this year, in Omaha and beyond. I’m thankful for the house gin and tonic at Tiny House Bar and the Grandaddy Low at Mercury. I’m thankful for the Block Burger at Block 16, the butterscotch budino at Dante and the Khaleesi roll at Yoshitomo. I’m thankful to have my place — La Buvette — where I’m always welcome and well-fed. I’m thankful to have traveled to New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Palm Springs, Los Angeles and all the way to Denmark and Norway in 2019.

I’m thankful for the time I’ve spent this fall cooking at home. For Matthew, my husband, and for his health. He’s who I most often cook for and, thankfully, he almost always loves what I make. I’m thankful for family and good friends who helped us get through this year. I’m thankful for our two cats, Tiny Miner and Scoop Copley, named after fine citizens of Red Cloud, Neb., who are spirited and curious but also wonderful companions.

I’m thankful for cookbooks, food blogs, Tom and Lorenzo, Harry Potter, Frank Ocean, America’s Test Kitchen and the Bon Appetit test kitchen YouTube channel (which you see at the top of this week’s email, along with a quiet dinner I made myself last night.) 

Thank you, as always, for reading. I hope your Thanksgiving includes lots of stuffing and at least one slice of pie. (As always, read on for more.)