Table Talk: Chef Smackdown on Thanksgiving Sides
Nov. 18 — Happy Tuesday, and welcome to the table.
Let’s be real, side dishes at the holiday table are just as important as the turkey – and in some families, maybe more so. (Remember the holiday mac and cheese drama former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms drummed up six years ago after posting her version on Twitter? People had strong opinions.)
🤜🤛 Instead of talking turkey for Thanksgiving, we’re publishing a side dish smackdown later this week. The story features six Atlanta chefs – three Southern chefs and three chefs hailing from the North and Midwest – sharing their favorite Thanksgiving side dishes and family food traditions with recipes.
Today, I’m giving subscribers a sneak peek at the story, with Avize chef Karl Gorline (the South) and Breaker Breaker chef Max Hines (the North/Midwest) talking crab dressing versus corn pudding. Both side dishes are tied not only to the regions where these two chefs grew up, but have deep family and community roots.
➕ Plus, I tell you why you should put the squash pancakes from Pure Quill Superette in Edgewood on your breakfast radar. And Sarra continues her recipe series on the “Grandmas of Atlanta” with The Magnolia Room’s kitchen manager, and grandmother and step-grandmother of 16, Debra Tardieff. Ms. Tardieff also offers her recipe for the restaurant’s French-cut pork chops and gravy.
Cheers!
🍸 Beth
✨ Buckhead shines bright with festive cheer this holiday season! A tree lighting, wreath decorating, hot chocolate crawls and encounters with Santa are just a few highlights of Miracle on Peachtree, Buckhead’s annual season of festivities. Check out the full line-up! SPONSOR MESSAGE
ATL Chefs Thanksgiving Sides Smackdown
🦃 When it comes to the Thanksgiving table, side dishes are anything but an afterthought, sometimes equaling or even eclipsing the turkey.
Thanksgiving sides also illustrate the rich communities and cultural influences found throughout the nation. A classic side dish in one region, for instance, may very well be unheard of in another.
🧑🍳 Earlier this month, we asked six Atlanta chefs — three Southern and three hailing from the North and Midwest — to share their favorite Thanksgiving side dishes and family food traditions for a story that will also include recipes online. Dishes range from sweet potato fritters and Trinidadian macaroni pie to green bean casserole and “braided” Southern greens.
Today, I’m giving you a little preview of our side dish smackdown before it goes live online, featuring Thanksgiving side dishes and holiday memories from Avize chef Karl Gorline (the South) and Breaker Breaker chef Max Hines (the North/Midwest).
South vs. North: Holiday Hot Dish
🦀 The South: Crab dressing
Avize chef Karl Gorline (Gulf Coast)
For Avize chef Karl Gorline, who grew up on the Gulf Coast, holiday meals always include seafood. “You’re right there by the water,” he said. “So, crab dressing is something that we had quite often. Imagine it like a weird crab cake.”
Gorline believes that the farther south you go, foodways have a more natural resistance to the norm. In this case, Thanksgiving recipes that are pushed across the country but don’t exactly reflect the region.
“Basically all the way from Mobile Bay over to New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, that’s one of the largest [crab] markets,” he said.
Blue crabs are native to the area and even a sign of trust. “Back in the bayou, people would just have crab traps out all the time. That’s somebody’s crab trap, and you respect it.,” Gorline said. “It’s almost like leaving the door unlocked in your neighborhood.”
A friend of Gorline’s uncle would make crab dressing and bring brined chickens to smoke for Thanksgiving. Gulf Coast Thanksgiving meals also tend to feature pasta and gumbo at the table, with gumbo occasionally served with dressing instead of gravy.
🌽 The North/Midwest: Corn pudding
Breaker Breaker chef Maximilian Hines (Ohio/DC)
Breaker Breaker and Stolen Goods chef Maximilian Hines spent a good chunk of his childhood in Ohio, with occasional stints in DC. But Ohio is home. It’s where he was born and where his parents are from – and where childhood memories were made around the Thanksgiving table.
For Thanksgiving, the family would prepare dishes influenced by their roots in Haiti, Louisiana, Mississippi, and southern Virginia. Some years, the stuffing served alongside the turkey, Honeybaked ham, yams, and mashed potatoes and gravy was mixed with blue crab meat, drawing on family roots along the Chesapeake Bay.
Then there were the numerous casseroles on offer, including a corn pudding that came to the family’s Thanksgiving table via his grandmother’s college roommate.
“The holidays are still pretty indicative of what my grandparents made every year, which definitely skews more Ohio than anywhere else,” Hines said. “Everything was a casserole, like green bean casserole, squash casserole, and that corn pudding. A lot of it involved canned vegetables from Glory Foods.”
The custardy corn pudding (or casserole) isn’t difficult to make and can incorporate late-season sweet corn. Hines likes the dish because it balances sweet and savory flavors gelled together by scalded milk, butter, and curdled eggs, giving the pudding a similar texture to a scrambled egg bake.
With family now scattered around the country, and his sister in London, it’s been hard to gather for Thanksgiving in recent years. As a full-time chef, Hines tries not to cook on Thanksgiving. However, this year he asked his mother for the corn pudding recipe, a dish that might just turn up on his Thanksgiving table.
Lights, laughter, and holiday cheer with Miracle on Peachtree festivities
SPONSORED BY LIVABLE BUCKHEAD
🎄This holiday season, Buckhead shines bright with festive cheer for the whole community!
Warm up with two festive hot chocolate crawls, give back at the wreath decoratingfor first responders, and don’t miss the lighting of a 24-foot tree in Charlie Loudermilk Park, featuring live music and festive llama photo ops. The holiday fun never stops!
✨ Events begin Fri., Dec. 5. Visit Livable Buckhead’s website for all the Miracle on Peachtree details.
The Move:
Squash Pancakes From Pure Quill Superette
🥦 When Chef Hudson Rouse’s kids were younger, getting them to eat their daily allowance of fruits and vegetables was always a challenge. Like so many parents of small children, he often resorted to hiding vegetables within the meals he served to his kids by baking these ingredients into casseroles or desserts, even folding them into pancake batter at breakfast. In fact, that’s the impetus behind the squash pancakes offered during breakfast at Pure Quill Superette.
For Pure Quill’s squash pancakes, Rouse cooks shredded butternut squash in French butter on a flat top until a wafer-thin patty forms (similar to hash browns). He then pours the pancake batter over the squash patty.
Rouse is known for using farm-fresh, seasonal produce and foraged ingredients in his cooking, and for letting those ingredients do most of the talking. As a mild-tasting fall squash carrying hints of warm spices, the butternut squash lends a touch of nutty earthiness, while not over-amplifying the sweetness of the pancake batter.
🥞 A stack of two sizable squash pancakes ($12) arrive at the table topped with two pats of butter and just enough cane syrup to drizzle on before eating.
Meet Magnolia Room Kitchen Manager and Grandmother
Debra Tardieff + Recipe
👵 This week, we’re bringing you the recipe for the French-cut pork chops and gravy from The Magnolia Room in Tucker. We’re also introducing you to the restaurant’s kitchen manager, Debra Tardieff, who brought a taste of Louisiana to metro Atlanta when she moved here last year.
Tardieff has 16 grandchildren and step-grandchildren, but says her daughter’s dog might take that 17th spot. Originally from Louisiana, Tardieff has worked in the restaurant industry her entire life and moved to Atlanta from Louisiana last October to take a job at The Magnolia Room.
Tardieff learned how to cook from her grandmother at age 9. She remembers standing on a chair and stirring the pot. The first recipe Tardieff learned was plain boiled rice. Over time, she worked her way through cakes, potato salad, and meats. Tardieff’s youngest son began expressing an interest in cooking around age 10, when she started to teach him the same fundamentals she learned from her grandmother. He now works as a sous chef in Louisiana.
When Tardieff goes home to Louisiana, she naturally expresses her love by cooking for her family. These days, though, she isn’t able to feed everyone with a single pot of rice. She has to use a big rice cooker and nearly 10 pounds of chicken to feed almost 20 people. “I never cook small,” she said.
🥩 Since moving to Atlanta, Tardieff has developed or improved a number of The Magnolia Room’s recipes. The Creole shrimp and grits, chicken pot pie, and chicken and dumplings are just a few examples. Tardieff added the French-cut pork chop to The Magnolia Room’s menu this fall, getting the idea while vacationing in Las Vegas.
“I [thought] this one would be really good for the store,” she said. “So I brought it back and played with it a little bit — different sizes, different weights — and we went with the 8-ounce [chop] that’s thinner. That way it won’t overcook.”
The recipe starts with a few minutes in the broiler, which cooks the outside first to keep the pork chop’s juices contained. If it helps, think of a pork chop like a steak that’s seared and then baked. Remember, with pork chops, the longer the meat stays in the oven, the more it will dry out.
🇫🇷 You’ll need to visit a butcher for French-cut pork chops, as they’re typically not sold in grocery stores. Although it’s not necessary, Tardieff recommends Your Dekalb Farmers Market for fresh ingredients. “I recently went and got granulated onion,” she said. “The more fresh stuff you have, the better.”
If you’re closer to Tucker, however, try Sherry’s Produce at the corner of Lawrenceville Highway and Brockett Road.
📋 Ingredients
Pork chop
- 4 8-ounce French-cut pork chops
- 4 tsp Cajun seasoning blend
- 4 tsp garlic salt
Note: use one teaspoon of each seasoning for each pork chop.
Gravy
Yields 4 cups
- 4 cups hot beef stock
- 1/8 Tbsp salt
- 1/8 Tbsp black pepper
- 1/8 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- Half a small onion, chopped
- 1/8 Tbsp Kitchen Bouquet browning and seasoning sauce
- 1/8 Tbsp sugar
♨️ Directions
- Prepare the broiler: Set your oven’s broiler on high and grease it.
- Prepare the pork chops: Season the pork chops with Cajun blend and garlic powder. Broil for 2 minutes on each side. Cook in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 4 more minutes.
- Start the gravy: Boil beef stock in a pot. Season with salt, black pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. Add sugar and Kitchen Bouquet.
- In a separate pan, cook chopped onions until clear. Stir into brown gravy.
- Transfer gravy and pork chops to a half pan or serving dish.
- Serve each chop with 1 cup of gravy.
You can read more from Sarra’s interviews with the “Grandmas of Atlanta” on Substack. Rough Draft will publish one recipe a month from “Grandmas of Atlanta.” Know a grandmother with a stellar recipe to share? Send details to sarra@roughdraftatlanta.com.
✨ Buckhead shines bright with festive cheer this holiday season! A tree lighting, wreath decorating, hot chocolate crawls and encounters with Santa are just a few highlights of Miracle on Peachtree, Buckhead’s annual season of festivities. Check out the full line-up! SPONSOR MESSAGE
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