How do you conceptualize your Thanksgiving practice? Do you loll in the warm gravy-filled bathtub of tradition, splashing between the green bean casserole and the marshmallow-topped yams? Do you light out for the territories with Thai-spiced vegan pumpkin soup? Do you skip the whole thing, go out for dim sum, then roast a turkey on Friday just for the joy of standing in front of the fridge, making sandwiches, picking at leftovers or frying up hash? Why Brussels sprouts? And how?

At times like these, a cookbook, an app, the Food Network, even Mark Bittman is not enough. For inspiration, for solace, for getting you through your kitchen's long dark night of the soul, only poetry will do. (Philosophy, the big gun typically aimed at life's meatier questions, is distressingly silent on crucial issues like do I brine or do I fry?) For all the koan-like beauty of his work, poet Wallace Stevens never made the most obvious suggestion to readers of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, one known to every kid since their days of playground double-Dutch: get yourself eleven more birds, mister, and you got yourself a pie.

Not that all poets should bake pies, but, as Grace Paley has pointed out, it's a valid occasional alternative, even for a poet. As Paley writes,

I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead
...
everybody will like this pie
it will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it many friends
will say why in the world did you
make only one

this doesn't happen with poems

So, pace Mr. Stevens, we offer 13 Ways of Looking at a Brussels Sprout, our poem of recipes for you and your pre-holiday kitchen.

I
Among twenty winter squashes
The only moving thing
Was the cleaver heading towards your fingers.

Aida Mollencamp, CHOW, How to Cut Hard Squash

II
I was of three minds
Like a refrigerator
In which there are three slaws.

Mark Bittman, New York Times, Slaws Eight Ways

III
The pureed pumpkin whirled in the coconut milk.
It was a small part of the dairy-free, gluten-free pantomime.

Pim Techamuanvivit, Chez Pim, Pumpkin Panna Cotta

IV
A man and a woman
Are hungry.
A man and a woman and a Brussels sprout salad
Are happy.

Heidi Swanson, 101 Cookbooks, Shredded Brussels Sprouts & Apples

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of chestnuts
Or the beauty of butter.
The pie coming out of the oven,
Or pie the morning after.

Bay Area Bites, KQED, Chestnut Soup for the Holidays
Bay Area Bites, KQED, Sweet Potato Pie

VI
Pies filled the long window
With buttery shards.
The shadow of you on your bicycle
Crossed it, to and fro, wishing you had pre-ordered your Thanksgiving dessert.
The mood
Traced on the glass
Sugared with longing.

Bay Area Bites, KQED, Food Secrets of Mission Pie’s Karen Heisler and Krystin Rubin
Bay Area Bites, KQED, A Day with 3 Babes’ Bakeshop

VII
O vegan teens of Haight Street,
Why do you imagine golden tofurkys?
Do you not see how the bacon
Whispers to the Brussels sprouts
Of the Whole Foods around you?

Chef Zac Palaccio, New York Times, Fatty ‘Cue Brussels Sprouts
Chef Erik Cosselmon, 7x7, Kokkari's Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Lemon

VIII
I know Burning Man
And its lurid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That fried onions in a can are involved
In what I know.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Post Punk Kitchen, Vegan Green Bean-Mushroom Casserole
Tori Richie, Tuesday Recipe, Green Beans with Brown Butter and Lemon

IX
When the Brussels sprout rolled under the table,
It came out fuzzied in cat hair
The five-second rule, debatable.

Bay Area Bites, KQED, Food Safety on Thanksgiving

X
At the sight of Brussels sprout leaves
Wilting in a skillet with red grapes and bacon
Even the ennui’d of brassicas
Would cry out sharply.

Chef Rene Ortiz, SF Chronicle, La Condesa's Coles de Brussels

XI
He rode over to the coast
In a Zipcar Mini.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The false chanterelles
For chanterelles.

Iso Rabins, Forage SF, Wild Mushroom Box

XII
The lard is melting
the pigs must be flying.

Jessica Prentice, Edible East Bay, Cream of Celery Root Soup with Leeks and Lard
Sara Seinberg, Seinberg Holistic Health Coaching, Spicy Cauliflower and Japanese Sweet Potato Soup

XIII
It was dinnertime all afternoon.
The dishwasher was running.
And it was going to run.

(with thanks to Amy Rosenbaum Clark)

Many Americans are what All The Rain Promises And More author David Arora calls fungophobic. I started this thin volume on a red-eye flight from San Francisco to New York City several years ago. I'd intended to become an overnight edible mushroom expert. Unfortunately, pills and $6 Heinekens clouded my concentration around the time I thumbed past the introduction, and I soon folded up the book and bopped off into a restless, heaving slumber. As a result, I know little about mushrooms -- their identification and classification. The introduction, however, I do remember, particularly a section in which Arora briefly outlines fungophobia. Now, every fall, when wild mushroom season booms, associations resurface. I think about what mushrooms represent -- to me, a life-long seeker of tasty edible fungi, as well how they've been conceived by others over time.

Arora claims our fungophobia came -- like bowl cuts and breakfast links -- from the British, who believed mushrooms were nutritionally worthless and perhaps hostile by design.

The Roman Stoic Seneca may have rather poetically dubbed them a "voluptuous poison," but for thousands of years, in less fearful cultures, mushrooms have been used in the crafting of folk medicines. Lest that fact be relegated to the territory of bubbling cauldrons, pockmarked witches, and spooky incantations, more recent research has linked some of the same mushrooms with cancer-fighting properties, anti-pathogenic activity, and immune system enhancement. Penicillin, along with many other famous pharmaceuticals, comes from the fungi kingdom. Nutritionally, mushrooms are no sweet potatoes, yet many are still high in fiber and provide vitamins like thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and ascorbic acid -- as well as minerals such as potassium and phosphorus. Exempting those that kill you or make you crazy for six hours, wild mushrooms can, as most readers are very aware, be extremely delicious. Chanterelles are buttery and subtle; fresh porcini are robust and nutty, excellent roasted, or in salads with Parmigiano-Reggiano shavings and pine nuts; lion's mane mushrooms are furry and high-strung, delicate, with a mild, almost seafood-like taste -- especially nice folded into an omelette. The possibilities are nearly limitless, and most dedicated eaters and chefs prize their special qualities and bountiful culinary applications.

But lore is stacked against mushrooms -- and not just because a few of them are quite dangerous. Historically, mystery and sheer perceived strangeness have had as much to do with the stigmas surrounding their consumption as the bloating, vomiting, and painful death certain varieties tend to cause. In medieval Ireland, people thought leprechauns used them as umbrellas. The ancient Egyptians believed mushrooms were the sons of gods, zapped to earth on tremendous bolts of lightning. The English imagined they had to be gathered under a full moon in order to be eaten safely. Mushrooms are weird: fragile, oddly luminous products of darkness and moisture that spring up unannounced -- like magic -- in woodsy crevices. That may have been why people were once so alarmed by them. They don't grow like wild and cultivated plants. Centuries ago, in Western Europe, mushrooms were sketchy pagan symbols, ominous harbingers of supernatural forces -- particularly when they were discovered suddenly sprouting in circular "fairy ring" colonies. Today, from Victorian paintings and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Fantasia and the distinctive cap-and-stem-like cloud that forms in the wake of a massive explosion, mushrooms are iconic, but not a food with universal appeal.

Last week, when my pre-kindergarten class was making its weekly foray through the Ferry Building, we stopped at the Far West Fungi store. We'd been there on other occasions, to scope the spore logs and posters, but I was freshly inspired. I'd made very good use of the season's offerings the night before -- skillet-browned porcini, king trumpet, chanterelle, and oyster mushrooms on a crispy pizza with thyme and Bellwether Farms Crescenza -- and was wondering how their bizarre shapes, fetching names, and earthy flavors would go over with the kids. I arranged a few raw ones on the art table for them to draw -- lion's mane, chanterelle, trumpet, and oyster -- and sliced and sauteed the rest in butter with a pinch of salt while the children napped. An hour later, for snack, in addition to cheese and crackers, I passed a plate with four glistening beige-and-brown mounds for them to sample.

Of fifteen children, only a third dared to taste. My expectations had been modest following another teacher's mortifying zucchini muffin fiasco, so I was not saddened, but pleased, almost amazed that those five, in the end, managed to vaporize most of what I set before them. "I like the black one and the yellow one," said one boy, gesturing loosely at the trumpets and chanterelles. "I'm going to tell my mom I like them." "They're pretty and taste good," a girl cooed. The other three fared very well, with a slight edge going to the oyster, but no one cared much for the lion's mane mushroom. It didn't hold up, disintegrating into soft, unappetizing strands -- the fault of a chef in a hurry flailing around a crummy electric stove with cheap cookware. On the art table, however, all were popular. One girl thought the chanterelle looked like a flower, and soon they were all calling it the "flower one," most likely because "chanterelle" was hard for them to say. The lion's mane, a 'shroom non grata at snack, was a big hit here -- especially once the kids learned its name. They kept petting it.

As part of this little tutorial, I did mention that some mushrooms are dangerous, that only ones from reputable suppliers should be eaten, and that sometimes yucky mushrooms can look like yummy ones. Here and there, a chorus of shrill "eeewwwwwws" erupted, but largely, the children were not grossed out, merely fascinated. They explored the mushrooms, passing them back and forth, pulling off the caps, examining the gills, trying to figure them out in that serious contemplative way four-year olds have.

If only the exploratory nibble of a truffle in some French field pre-civilization had initially sparked our ongoing cultural fascination, not the photogenic fly agaric toadstool with its deep-red cap and white spots. Perhaps then aversions would be less common. Thanks to Nintendo, of course, even this wicked-looking specimen has shed some of its evil. In the famous Super Mario Brothers video game, Mario, an Italian-American plumber, winds his way through various worlds within the Mushroom Kingdom. Predictably, when he hops on mushrooms, he either gets bigger and powers up, or rarely but not infrequently, gets zapped with a debilitating dose of poison. Mushrooms giveth and mushrooms taketh away. One of Mario's sidekicks in later additions to the franchise is a grinning little fly agaric named Toad. A kid who used to be in my current class was obsessed with mushrooms because his older sister played a Mario game at home. He would make mushrooms out of Legos and have them hop around, squeaking, growing bigger (as he added more Legos) and then smaller again (as he removed Legos). Once, I built him a mushroom-shaped Lego house big enough for a whole family of Lego mushrooms, and he was ecstatic.

My favorite bar in the world epitomizes the slightly uncomfortable degree of cuteness Nintendo has bestowed upon the toadstool. It's called Pretty Space & Bar Mushroom, and it occupies a minuscule suite in a nondescript office building on a busy bar-lined street in downtown Kyoto, Japan. The Phone Booth -- and maybe an actual phone booth -- feels roomy by comparison. There's a mushroom on the door, and when you open it, a bizarre little world appears -- not unlike one of the treasure-filled huts in Super Mario Brothers -- which at three in the morning, can be simultaneously exciting and disconcerting. Glitchy video game music sputters on the stereo. A red glow saturates all you see. There are mushrooms everywhere. Even the jolly bartender's hair is carved in the shape of a cap.

Back in San Francisco, watching the kids crowd around the mushrooms, I remembered something I once read -- perhaps in Arora's book -- about morels. Never successfully cultivated commercially, wild morels are especially abundant in areas ravaged by forest fires, their spores somehow spurred into action by the destruction. After flames, and then ash, and then rains, they emerge, phoenix-like, a delicious sign of life ready to be plucked and savored. It's an image I like to keep in mind -- even when mushrooms aren't for dinner.

Mushroom 500 Flatbread

Every once in awhile I will dine out and happen upon a dish that is so good I spend the entire evening scheming about how I can recreate it at home.

COCO500's truffled mushroom flatbread with sea salt and chili is one of them. It is the perfect bite of crispy flatbread, earthy, robust mushroom, and salty parmigiano.

I knew it would be hard to fully recreate the experience -- so much of it is in the flatbread -- but I knew I could come close, and while I would love nothing more than to jaunt off to COCO500 every time I had a hankering, this is much easier.

For my take on this, I opted to scale down the fancy factor so it could be an easy and inexpensive snack or party hors d'oeuvre. The beauty of this recipe is in its flexibility. Ambitious? Make your own flatbread. Not so ambitious? Store-bought whole wheat pita works wonderfully. Or, try slicing and toasting up some baguette for a crostini.

Also, feel free to play with the type of mushrooms you use. If the button mushrooms are looking good at the market this week, go for those. My favorite has been baby portabellos lately. And since I came across some spring morel mushrooms, I decided to sautee them up and throw them on top for this last batch.

The recipe below is the basic base for your dish, but the fun is in tweaking it and making it your own.

Mushroom 500 Flatbread
With inspiration from COCO500's truffled mushroom flatbread with sea salt and chili.

Feel free to play with the type of mushrooms you use for your base of duxelles (fancy French for "mushroom spread"). If you want to go all out, by all means, add some shaved truffle, or finish it off with truffle oil or salt. Not necessary though, this is perfectly delicious without the expensive stuff.

Servings: 4

Ingredients:
For the duxelles:
1 pound baby portabello mushrooms, cleaned
¼ cup shallots (or 1/2 medium onion)
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine
Salt and pepper to taste
A few dashes Worcestershire sauce

Parmigiano Reggiano
Flatbread or pita

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 375 F.

Roughly chop mushrooms, shallots (or onion), and garlic, and place in food processor. Process until everything is finely minced.

Heat butter and oil in a pan. Place mushroom mixture in, add the rest of the ingredients, and sautee until it becomes a paste-like consistency.

Spread the duxelles on flatbread. Sprinkle liberally with Parmigiano Reggiano, and bake until cheese is melted and golden (about 8-10 minutes).

Walking through the Ferry Building recently, I couldn't pass up locally foraged chanterelle mushrooms from Far West Fungi. Chanterelles first become available to us in the fall, being foraged from the Pacific Northwest. They arrive with the first rains, and they begin to grow closer to San Francisco as we get into wintertime and cooler, rainier weather. Because chanterelles grow as the result of a symbiotic relationship between fungus and host plant (usually a tree), they are always found in the wild and don't grow outside of a forest environment.

In his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan details foraging for chanterelle mushrooms with a mushroom hunter -- one of several area people who forage for these delicious mushrooms in nearby forests and then bring them to San Francisco to sell to restaurants and stores.

I jump at the chance to buy chanterelle mushrooms because I love their meaty texture and delicious flavor. It's been said that they have an apricot scent, and I think that the flavor is deliciously strong without being overwhelming. They don't tend to cook down as much as say, button mushrooms, so the yield per person is better.

Keep an eye out for chanterelles on local area menus. I usually find them at the local gourmet pizzerias as a pizza topping, and SPQR regularly has them on their menu sauteed with spinach.

When cooking at home, I usually make very basic dishes that show off the chanterelle flavor. Tonight, I'm thinking of using mine in a very basic risotto. In the past, I've sauteed them simply with butter and topped with a poached egg. I also like them tossed with a whole grain such as farro or brown rice.

Chanterelles have a hefty price tag -- I purchased a meager amount at Far West Fungi for $20 per pound. But they are meaty enough and substantial enough to be a main ingredient in place of meat, which is how I justify the cost.

Currently, the chanterelles available at Far West Fungi and local farmers markets are being foraged from all around the Bay Area: Sonoma, Marin, and Alameda counties. We can expect to see chanterelle mushrooms for at least a few more weeks, and if it rains then possibly another month or two.

Chanterelles on Bay Area Bites:
Hunter gatherer: Chanterelles in Big Sur

Chanterelle mushroom recipes on the blogs:
Truffled Chanterelle, Celery Root and Potato Gratin
Warm Chanterelle and Pancetta Salad
Farro with Chanterelles, Apples, Apples and Apples

The day after Thanksgiving is rapidly becoming one of my favorite foodie holidays. Each year we trek down to Monterey to visit our friends and their family, and participate in what proves to be an even more elaborate and decadent feast than the previous day. This year, for the first time, I went down for the whole extravaganza, which includes a nearly all-day mushroom hunt.

Back into the hills...deep into the hills...of Big Sur we went, turning somewhere off of Highway 1 and skidding down a dirt road for at least 5 miles. Once parked, we probably trekked a few miles into the ever-thickening forest. In fact, you would never have known what a glorious day it was for the thick canopy of trees shading us below.

At some point down the path we turned off, and started climbing up a rather steep hill, through heavy brush and downed trees, doing our best to avoid the poison oak (which, I found out later, I didn't actually manage to avoid), all the while looking, searching, straining to see the delicate little fungi we were seeking. Finally, a cry of discovery and excitement (a cry that was quite distinguishable from the anguished cry earlier from my friend Tony who was attacked by yellow jackets, which sent another friend up a tree thinking it was a wild boar on the rampage). We all rushed over and found a patch of perfect, beautiful, delicious chanterelle mushrooms. Our bounty. We took what we could use, left the little ones to grow, and made our way back to prepare our feast.

Our feast that night consisted of tiny little mussels and barnacles we had harvested on the coast on the way home from the hunt, steamed in white wine. Our next course: homemade tagliolini with shredded quail, pancetta and chanterelle ragu. Our main course a slow-simmered pork stew with leeks and more chanterelles. And to top it off, a juicy pear galette.

The next day, each with a bag of mushrooms, we returned to the city... scheming how to use our chanterelle morsels. My friend Max ended up pickling his. I, on the other hand, decided upon decadence, and made a creamy white lasagna. It was heaven.

The Most Amazing Decadent Mushroom Lasagna

This recipe is adapted from a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the owner of the River Cottage, author of numerous incredible cookbooks, and believer in living off the land.

For the Bechamel
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups whole milk, warmed
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
1/3 cup grated Fontina
About 3/4 to 1 cup chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Lasagna noodles*
About 300g fresh chanterelles, cleaned and sliced very thinly
About 6 large or 9 small very thin slices of good-quality prosciutto
About 1/2 cup Parmesan
About 1/2 cup Fontina

*Note: You can use either fresh or dried lasagna noodles. Fresh are always my first choice, and contrary to what some might tell you, you don't need to pre-cook them, you can just layer them and bake them. There are also dried lasagna noodles that you don't need to pre-cook either. They are thin enough that they bake when you bake the lasagna. The nice thing about these is that they tend to stay al dente when baked.

Preheat the oven to 375F. To make the bechamel, in a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and cook, whisking, for about 2 minutes. Slowly add the milk, whisking constantly, to smooth out all the lumps. Turn down the heat to medium-low, and add the Parmesan and Fontina, whisking to incorporate. Whisk in enough chicken stock to make a fairly loose sauce. It should be pourable but not thin. If you are using the dried lasagna that is not pre-cooked it's a good idea to make the sauce a bit thinner than you normally would. Season to taste with salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper.

To layer the lasagna, in a baking dish about 21-cm square, add about 1/4 cup of the Bechamel. Place a layer of lasagna noodles, then another 1/4 cup Bechamel, the 1/3 of the chanterelles. Top the chanterelles evenly with 1/3 of the prosciutto, shredding it into pieces to spread it evenly if necessary. Top the prosciutto with a thin layer of grated Parmesan and Fontina. Top with about 1/2 cup Bechamel, covering the filling evenly. Top with an even layer of lasagna noodles, then repeat the layering two more times. Add a final layer of lasagna noodles, then the rest of the Bechamel, and some grated Parmesan and Fontina.

Bake the lasagna until the noodles are tender, and the filling is bubbling, about 45 minutes if using the dried uncooked noodles (for fresh it might be about 25 minutes). Let sit for about 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

Cassie Clemmons, 1942

I've always loved celebrity cooking stories. Maybe it's because they're proof that the starlets actually eat, or maybe it's because it tickles me to think of them puttering around a kitchen with knives and saucepans just like us. Not that long ago, I hit a gold mine when I discovered Frank DeCaro's library of celebrity recipes and I've spent hours paging through recipe contributions by Debbie Reynolds, Ida Lupino, and J. Edgar Hoover. (I'm sure Rock Hudson's cannoli is quite tasty.)

Growing up, I heard celebrity cooking stories from my Grandma and Grandpa Clemmons. Both of them worked and played in Hollywood and both of them loved to cook. Grandma, who once won a Charleston dance contest with William Bendix and was presented a string of pearls by judge Bette Davis, was a fashion sequence model at MGM, appearing briefly in The Women, The Great Ziegfield, and Dracula. Grandpa had studied architecture at University of Michigan but made his real career out of being a "funny man." He was a gag writer for Bing Crosby's radio show and later a script writer and storyman for Walt Disney, listing The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, The Aristocats, The Rescuers, and The Fox and the Hound among his credits.

My mother still recalls the annual holiday dinner parties thrown at their house in Glendale, where the Clemmons family hosted friends and neighbors who didn't have anywhere to go for the holidays. (Unlike today, when we have to deal with "busiest travel day" of the year, people back then just didn't hop on a plane to visit family every time a holiday popped up.) Some of the regulars at these raucous parties included Bill Morrow (Bing Crosby and Jack Benny's head writer) and his various girlfriends, including actress Pat Dane, a boxer named "Society Kid" Hogan, and Bing Crosby himself.

The food was a potluck affair with the guests bringing their favorite dishes and my grandmother taking care of the main course. A few Christmases ago, my mother put together a family cookbook for my two sisters and me and the three of us now have a sampling of some of these recipes as well as the stories. The recipes are, of course, very retro with lots of sour cream and mayonnaise. Clogged arteries aside, however, the recipes are absolute gems.

My favorite story in The Family Moveable Feast is Grandma experiencing a Julia Child moment. While my 80-year-old Great Grandma Mimi entertained the guests by doing the Cakewalk with her daughter Anita at the piano, Grandma was in the kitchen taking care of that year's roast turkey and Bill Morrow was in the kitchen keeping her company and feeding her cocktails. Ready to serve, the big bird was nestled on a platter when it slipped off and plummeted to the floor with a rather juicy smack. Grandma looked at Bill and Bill looked at Grandma. Grandma picked up the bird, brushed it off, and served it and Bill kept his mouth shut.

No one but wedding buffets seem to use chafing dishes any more. I have a lovely chafing dish that was a wedding present, but I'm afraid to take it out and see how tarnished it's become. However, if you do have a chafing dish you're not afraid to use or polish this Thanksgiving, here is one of the more decadent recipes in my family's cookbook.

Chafing Dish Mushrooms

3 pounds fresh mushrooms
1 1/2 cup Amontillado sherry
1/2 cup water
1/2 pound butter
1 fresh bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 teaspoon dried dill seed
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pint sour cream

1. Using a damp paper towel, brush off the mushrooms and trim the ends. Put the mushrooms in a large pot and add all the ingredients, except the sour cream.

2. Cook over medium heat for thirty minutes and until most of the liquid has reduced. Fold in the sour cream and serve in a polished, elegant chafing dish.