And so it begins - the Christmas movie marathon

My mom has a little addiction. It really only kicks in for about a month every year, but like any addiction it causes tension between the members of my family. When she is indulging in her little habit, we can hardly stand to stay in the same room.

My mom is addicted to Christmas movies.

I can't say when it first started, but I guess there were signs all along. We always watched more than our fair share of Christmas movies in our house - one of my mom's favorites is "Miracle on 34th Street." She likes the original and the remake. So most years we would watch a few Christmas movies each season and the classic Christmas cartoons such as "Frosty the Snowman" that air most years.

Things really escalated one year when she discovered the wishlist feature on Tivo. With the feature, you can program in a keyword and Tivo will automatically record any movie or TV show that has that word in the description or the title. I used it with keywords such as U2 or Joseph Fiennes, one of my favorite actors. But my mom one holiday season programmed in Christmas and hundreds of movies and shows popped up over the month.

For anyone who doesn't know, Christmas movies become a staple in the month of December on Lifetime and the Hallmark channel. And the Christmas movies start in force the day after Thanksgiving. So far this weekend my has watched "Secret Santa" starring Jennie Garth about a journalist who shows up in a small town to find out who has been giving out miraculous gifts anonymously and "Comfort and Joy" starring Nancy McKeon (Jo from "Fact of Life") in what is sort of a rip off of "The Family Man." The main character is a career woman who wakes up from a car accident with no career and a ready-built family. She also has a few more movies set to tape including "A Dog Named Christmas" and "The 12 Men of Christmas"

The worst Christmas movies are the ones that have sequels. There is one batch of movies that stars Kathy Ireland as the daughter of Santa Claus who comes to earth to make one nasty family believe in Christmas again. Most of the movies are usually super cheesy and not very well acted or written. But my mom gets a kick out of them so in the holiday spirit we indulge her addiction a little every year.

The Thanksgiving feast

Dry brine roasted turkey seasonsed with thyme, rosemary, parsley and lemon zest.

Homemade cranberry sauce.

Best ever string bean casserole - recipe courtesy of Alton Brown.

Roasted garlic mashed potatoes.

Roasted garlic for the mashed potatoes.

Our Thanksgiving feast included a few other things at my aunt's house, but these were my family's contributions to the meal - or extras we cooked for leftovers at our own house. The dry brine turkey turned out moist and flavorful - but the salt measurements did throw me off when we started the brine process on Monday so the meat was a little on the salty side. We also released that roasting garlic on the bottom rack in the oven when the turkey is on the top rack can cause it to cook a little unevenly. Luckily the turkey I cooked was just to have some meat for sandwiches and it worked out fine. We will probably experiment with the dry brine again soon so we can perfect it for next Thanksgiving.

For now, I am enjoying a breakfast of leftover string bean casserole and a turkey sandwich topped with homemade cranberry sauce.

Day three - Thanksgiving prep

Day three of Thanksgiving preparation didn't get off to the best start. Somehow my mom missed the part about the dressing needing to go into the oven and she popped in a Gizdich apple pie - that required nearly two hours of baking time. So that tied up the oven until 8:30 p.m. Then I went to pull out the Italian sausage for the dressing - and it was frozen. So my dad offered to drive out to the store to pick up some so we didn't have to deal with defrosting it. We can always thaw out the frozen one another day for baked ziti.

Then we realized that the casserole dish we planned to use for the dressing leaves us without something for the green bean casserole I am making (from scratch) tomorrow morning. So that led to a search for another baking dish. We found one under a cabinet that had a paycheck stub and a box of pepto bismol inside...so guess we haven't used it in a while.

So after nearly an hour of browning sausage, sauteing vegetables and chopping fresh herbs, the dressing went into the oven. Cooking it tonight will free up the oven for the green bean casserole and, of course, the turkey.

We still have pies in the oven - not homemade but again from Gizdich. At this point, I don't think we are going to get to all the other items we expected to prep tonight - the cranberry sauce and the roasted garlic for the roasted garlic mashed potatoes. I'll just plan to get up early tomorrow and get started. Deadline is 2 p.m. to have everything done since that is around when dinner is traditionally served at my aunt's house. It might be a little like one of those cooking challenges tomorrow morning as we race to prep everything on time.

Photo by MELISSA FLORES

Dry Lake Dressing comes out of the oven crispy on top

Day two - Thanksgiving prep and a little reminiscing

So day two of my Thanksgiving prep is pretty simple. Really all I have to do is check on the turkey and "massage" it through the plastic bag.

I also need to check on the progress of my sourdough bread for the stuffing. The recipe calls for stale sourdough bread and though the bread I bought has been sitting in an open bag for two days, as of this morning it was still pretty soft. Today might be the day to pull it out of the bag to speed up the process.

For anyone who is a little bit OCD like me, this is the time where I start to panic a little bit about how difficult the recipes I've chosen to make might actually be. Will the green bean casserole take more time to prepare than I've set aside on Thursday morning? Will the stuffing dry out too much if I cook it Wednesday night? And what if I used too much salt to dry brine my turkey. Russ Parsons said to use only a tablespoon per five pounds, but Martha Stewart said to use 2/3 c. for a 22 lb. turkey for the dry brine. I'm really bad at math and measuring so maybe I calculated wrong and the turkey will turn out too salty.

But really I guess the meal is secondary to spending time with the people I care about. I have only been away from home for one Thanksgiving. I went to college and graduate school a five-hour drive from home and had benevolent professors who who always gave us Wednesday off. And I have always been fortunate for find employment close to home that offers paid holidays.

The one Thanksgiving I spent away from home was when I studied abroad in Ireland when I was 20 and though I was a long way from California, I had a makeshift family with whom to celebrate. The Irish guys I know made a little bit of fun of us Americans that year since we all had to throw a Thanksgiving feast far from home. Actually, a couple days ago I was chatting with one of my Irish friends and mentioned Thanksgiving was coming up and he said, "Oh yeah, that's a big deal for you guys."


One of the perks included in the program I selected in Ireland (which was run through Butler University) included a turkey for Thanksgiving. Not per student, but per site. So the dozen or so of us at the University of Ulster at Coleraine coordinated a meal for ourselves and our newly found Irish friends. For some of the natives I knew it was their first Thanksgiving. For many, it may have been the only one. All the Americans picked a traditional dish to bring to the meal and the Irish guys, well, they offered to provide the beer, wine and spirits.


I brought the mashed potatoes and I remember searching all over the Teske's grocery store for a can of cranberry sauce. My mom even offered to send a few cans express mail, but eventually I found a tiny jar of Ocean Spray whole berry sauce on a shelf. It turns out the Brits save cranberry sauce for Christmas. But ever since then, I am been a big fan of whole berry cranberry sauce.

One friend made stuffing with raisins and the idea of something sweet in the mix surprised me since my family's version is savory. Another made candied yams, which I'd never had before, either. And there was a dish of Southern greens cooked with bacon and butter.


But more than the food, I remember the feeling of sharing a tradition with friends. The things I remember are the bear hug from a boy who was more than a foot taller than me, who said he didn't want me to miss my family. And another asking everyone if they included mushrooms in their dishes because he was allergic.

There was something about the meal that made everyone feel a little bit at home even though half of us were thousands of miles from it.

Day one - Thanksgiving prep

So Thanksgiving might not be until Thursday, but when you try out a new recipe every year like I do for the main course the preparation has to start early.

Every year since I started working at the Weekend Pinnacle I've tried a new turkey-cooking method. One year I followed the example of a coworker who smokes his turkey with rosemary. The low-and-slow method left the turkey moist while the rosemary gave it plenty of flavor inside and out. That was also the year I learned about aromatics - basically herbs, celery and onions that can be stuffed into the cavity of a turkey in lieu of stuffing to offer up some more flavor.

The next year I tried a brine I saw on Alton Brown's show. A brine is basically a mix of salt and seasonings, usually in a chicken broth and ice bath. The turkey sits for up to 12 hours in the wet mixture before roasting it as desired. It was the moistest turkey I'd ever had and the most flavorful. The basic principle of a brine is osmosis - the salt helps draw the other flavors into the turky so whatever flavors are in the brine - honey, pepper, rosemary - ends up inside the meat, all the way down to the bone.

This year I was all set to put together a wet brine and roast a turkey when I happened across an L.A. Times article by Russ Parsons, a food columnist. He wrote about how he discovered the dry-brine method works just as well as wet brine without all the hassle of keeping a turkey in a water bath for days. So I was intrigued enough to try out a new method this year. Hence the prep work on Monday for a Thursday meal.

Dry-brining a turkey basically means rubbing it down with salt and letting it sit in a ziplock bag for three days. According to Parsons the turkey can absorb whatever flavors are mixed in with the salt, such as herbs or lemon zest. For our turkey, we created a salt mix that included fresh rosemary, thyme, dry poultry seasonings and fresh lemon zest. The mix only smelled just like Thanksgiving as it was sprinkled onto the turkey. The hardest part of the method so far was trying to get a frozen turkey into a large ziplock bag - for some reason, the rock salt messed with the zipper so it wouldn't seal. Our solution was just to double bag it. The turkey is back in the freeze to absorb lots of flavor before its time to cook.

Check in for more updates on the Thanksgiving feast later this week.

Photo by MELISSA FLORES

A still frozen turkey is sprinkled with salt and herbs before being put in a plastic bag as part of the dry-brine method.

I don't think I can dance - but these guys can

I missed "So You Think You Can Dance" when it aired this week, but I had a good reason. I saw the season 5 tour in San Jose. The first year the producers of the Fox dance competition show sold tickets for a tour, I was a little skeptical, but even in a down economy HP Pavilion was sold out Wednesday night.

Though I've been watching season 4, 5 and 6 in HD, there is something about seeing the dancers live that can't compare to TV. One of the things that drives me crazy about the show is that as TV viewers, we don't get to see the dances straight - the cameras are constantly switching views. And we have to deal with Mary Murphy screaming all the time about the people she likes.

The live dance performances were great, and a reminder of how lacking some of this year's contestants are - sorry, but tap dancers are cool to watch but their dance skills don't carry over to other styles.

I might have mentioned it before, but I am a person without any rhythm. I can hardly clap on beat, let alone dance, and that's probably why I was so amazed by the performances on "So You Think You Can Dance" the first time I saw it. I started watching halfway through season 2. I was wowed by the moves of Benji Schwimmer, Heidi Groskreutz, Doynelle Jones and Travis Wall. Benji won the title of "America's Favorite Dancer" that year, and I was hooked.

At the show on Wednesday, my favorite dance was a Wade Robson piece to Roisin Murphy's "Ruby Blue." Dancers Janette Manrara and Brandon Bryant performed the jewel-heist themed piece to perfection. Actually, most of the performances were good since for the tour the producers pick the best dances from the whole season.

The only thing I found less than entertaining were the cheesy intros that the dancers were forced to do. All 12 of the dancers took turns introducing their colleagues - decked out in "So You Think You Can Dance" clothing that was also available for sale at the souvenir booths. These guys on the tour are dancers, not actors, and it's clear in their delivery of their lines. The only piece that I found at all entertaining was a sales pitch by Kupono Aweau for some new "So You Think You Can Dance" workout videos. For some reason, a skinny Hawaiian boy running around in short shorts was hilarious.

When I was watching last week's episodes yesterday I was thinking about which dancers this year I would most want to see on tour - generally the top 10 or 12 go along for the tour. I don't really have a favorite for season six yet, but I do know which dancers I could do without. But there is only one more week before the top 10 is decided on so I'll know soon whether I want to get tickets for the next tour or not.

3-D movies offer hits and misses

For me, a really good movie is one that makes me forget I am watching a movie at all. If I get engrossed in a movie, lose track of time, laugh or cry or forget that it is actors on the screen, that's usually a good sign.

This is one of the biggest downfalls for me of the 3-D movement in movies right now. I have no problem watching a 3-D movie for 12 minutes on a ride at Disneyland, but it's a lot harder to sit through a two-hour movie with the heavy Dolby Digital 3-D glasses pressing down on the bridge of my nose.

I've seen a few movies in 3-D since this whole trend started about two years ago. One of the best was a U2 concert in Imax, though I will admit I probably loved it because I am such a huge fan of the band. It was almost better than seeing the Edge in concert since there he was towering over me from the screen instead of me watching from 68 rows up in a football stadium.

Other 3-D movies haven't been as successful. Many of them are made so that viewers become hyper aware that they are watching a movie. In "Journey to the Center of the Earth" there were just so many gimmicks that were thrown in just to take advantage of the 3-D aspect of it that had nothing to do with the plot or storyline. It irritated me when the filmmakers through in a scene with marbles just so they could bounce out at viewers.

The most successful movies have been the ones that tell the story without paying much attention to the 3-D effects. That was the case with Disney's "Up" and the movie "Coraline," two animated films where the 3-D enhanced the story. It could just be that since they are animated the movement fits more smoothly into the storyline. And "Up" and "Coraline" both had storylines that drew me in.

Disney's latest movie, "A Christmas Carol" was a mixed bag. It was a classic retelling of the Charles Dickens story so the only thing new that was really brought forth were the 3-D effects. It looked pretty stunning with some of the scenes that fly over the Victorian-era London buildings feeling a little like those 3-D movie rides at Disneyland. But again, it seemed like some of the scenes were made with the 3-D in mind. And it was a little disconcerting to see an animated version of Colin Firth and Jim Carrey. See more about "A Christmas Carol" and other adaptations of Dickens' classic in the Weekend Pinnacle on Friday.

It will be interesting to see the next big 3-D movie, the much anticipated "Avatar" from James Cameron. The movie uses new 3-D technology that Cameron invented that allows the regular and 3-D version of the film to be recorded simultaneously in the same camera. Though I am not a big fan of Cameron's work - I am the only person I know who hates "Titanic" - it will be interesting to see if he pulls off the very expensive movie.