So it’s that time of year again, the time of food. You might think that is all the time, and you would not be incorrect. However, the “holiday season” is upon us, and I for one refuse to waste any time diving in. Obviously, Thanksgiving was Thursday, and with it came delicious goodness – pies, candied yams, green bean casseroles, turkeys slathered in rich gravies, pies (yes, I mentioned pies twice. They are doubly important). However, I’d like to focus on a little-known holiday known as “the parents have descended upon me, oh crap, I need to feed them.” I’m working on a better name for it. Suggestions accepted and appreciated.

My wonderful family joined me in Los Angeles this Thanksgiving. It was a delight having them here, as we’re spread across the country and rarely are we all in one location. The parents flew in the Sunday before our feast, and I wanted to welcome them with a tasty meal since my father routinely complains that I never cook for him. My astute observations that he lives 3,000 miles away fall on deaf and dejected ears, so I figured now would be as good a time as any.

Cooking for family is a totally different experience than cooking for yourself, or your friends, most of whom are polite enough to simply thank you for your efforts and then quietly whisper to their friends “McDonald’s?” as they leave. Family is different. They feel perfectly comfortable telling you “this is way too garlicky! I don’t like my vegetables soaked in oil.” (Actual quote, my parents). So, the pressure was on to find a delicious, easy enough meal to concoct to impress them but still maintain my sanity. And apparently, I’m an old southern lady because I settled on fried chicken and skillet cornbread. Who doesn’t like fried chicken and cornbread? Crazy people, that’s who. So armed with the cast-iron skillet and Ad-Hoc cookbook my mama got me for Christmas, I went to work.

I started out with the Thomas Keller Ad-Hoc fried chicken recipe. I normally tweak and play with my recipes, but with this one, I follow it to a T. His recipe results in savory, rich, flavorful, epic, crunchy delicious goodness. I don’t say that to praise my cooking – I say that to praise his recipe. It is pure perfection, and super easy. First, You create the brine – basically toss a bunch of herbs and lemon juice into a pot, boil it to dissolve the salt (it’s a brine, after all) and throw your chicken in there. Okay, so full disclosure, I follow the brine and cooking recipes to a T. But my parents only like white meat, so instead of buying two small 2 1/2 pound chickens as the recipe calls for… I punked out and bought a bunch of chicken breasts, and two drumsticks. For myself. Judge away. So first, the brine:

Brine it for exactly twelve hours, if you need to save it for later, just take it out of the brine, put in a tupperware, and continue refrigerating. You’ll want to take it out an hr and half prior to frying to get the chicken to room temp. Then, you mix up a delicious flour/cayenne/pepper/paprika mixture.

And then get a little prep-station going with the chicken and the buttermilk and the flour mixture.

And then… go to town!

The first fry… it was my drumsticks. This is actually because dark meat fries at a lower temperature than white meat. And also because drumsticks are the most important, so they go first. Duh.

And then, the satisfaction of knowing that if nothing else, you will eat well that night

After frying everything (which took roughly an hour or so), it was time to move onto the skillet cornbread. I found a great recipe on seriouseats.com for cheddar, bacon, scallion skillet cornbread. And I found a recipe on marthastewart.com for jalapeno cornbread… so I kind of mushed the two together, and added more jalapenos… recipe to follow. But basically it turns out… skillet corn bread with bacon, cheese, and jalapenos is a recipe for a happy belly.

And the mix

And first, you fry up some bacon in the skillet, and get that good bacon fat flavor soaking into the cast iron –

And then… delicious skillet cornbread

For dessert, dad’s favorite are waffles, and churros. So, I found a recipe (again on seriouseats.com for waffle churros and chocolate dipping sauce. So churros… in a waffle iron. How can you go wrong?? You can’t.

With that recipe came a great chocolate ganache dipping sauce, and I thought to myself, “why not make it mexican chocolate?” and it turns out all you need to do is mix up cinnamon, ginger, and cayenne in a 4:2:1 ratio and toss that sucker in there.

And then, after adding in some wilted spinach with garlic, sweet potatoes with carrots, brown sugar, and cinnamon, and a spring salad mix, I finally had the spread:

All of this for my parents and godmother. All of whom at least claimed to appreciate it. So, a relative success! (Ha! I made a funny, get it?) And then obviously, afterwards, all the wine happened.