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The holiday season is upon us. And with that comes travel, food, expanding waistlines, tested livers, and more travel.

It's 530 EST and I'm presently folded into a pleather seat soaring to New York City to join former Minnesotan Joy and her Garden State Lover Kellen in their penthouse pied a terre for Thanksgiving. Joy and I go back to our days whoring our souls to the retail gods while feeding and drinking ourselves around the great city of Minneapolis. I knew Joy had the same love of food and entertaining that I did when she skilfully duplicated authentic tamales one night then hosted a well executed Oscar party (swag bags were included).

As for Thanksgiving Joy has been hosting her own for the last few years in what I can only imagine to be coffin sized kitchens all over the island of Manhattan. I've seen pictures of brining Toms squeezed into refrigerators that I'm sure were not much larger than the seat I am presently calling home.

This year Joy has planned a feast including two variations of stuffing (that's dressing for all my Southern readers), french onion soup and a buffet of all the regular fixin's. She was also kind enough to allow me to bake dessert for our guests. My plan was to make a traditional pumpkin pie (which I must confess was going to have a premade crust up until about an hour ago when Joy text informing me that Manhattan was sold out!) and a Pumpkin Chai Cheesecake. In preparedness I sent Joy a pie plate and springform pan along with 2 loaves of my crack like Spiced Zucchini Bread.

My goal when I deplane is to brave NYC transit by taking the train into the city. Why so pedestrian you ask? Because friends this flying food stylist is broke. How is that possible you you cry? Well readers the crazy glamorous career of food styling is all freelance save for a lucky few. And while I've been beyond busy the last few months making all your favorite foods look beautiful for photos I was not busy the few months prior to that. So that means cash flow is light now but should be normal in a few weeks. Plus what fun is travel without a little adventure? Though a little longer than the normal taxi ride the train ride should be easy and uneventful. The only drawback is that I don't get that majestic view of Manhattan while barreling through the subway.

It is now noon on Thanksgiving and as evident from my post I clearly survived the train ride into the city. Thanksgiving prep is underway here on the 24th floor in Midtown. I was up at 730am getting my Pumpkin Chai Cheesecake in the oven. Joy and I caught up over coffee and some of the crack like Spiced Zucchini Bread that I mentioned above. Joy has created a very well planned out day (schedule is pictured...that's right a schedule). As of right now we are on track for the day. Joy has kindly chronicled the morning with her camera.

Today's menu includes the following:

Roasted Turkey

Homemade Mac and Cheese

Cornbread Stuffing

Traditional Stuffing

Curried Lemon Brussels Sprouts

Garlic Mash

Giblet Gravy

Jalapeno Cranberry Sauce

Pumpkin Chai Cheesecake

Copious amounts of wine/beer

A view of the Hudson River

A Sassy Brooklynite Named Karen (I will be asking her if she knows Tony Danza, a fellow Brooklynite)

Photos of the day:

At this point we have grown tired and the camera has somehow been put down. Plus who wants to see pictures of a dirty kitchen?

Fast forward to 5pm on the dot. After a quick turn in the kitchen to help Joy get some final details in place we are presented with a parade of the following food:

Pumpkin Chai Cheesecake with Vanilla Ice Cream

It is now the day after Thanksgiving. And we continue to eat. Breakfast of leftovers and oatmeal below.

Stuffing with Fried Egg and a side of Oatmeal

Joy and myself had some errands to run on the UWS and left Kellen alone in the pHouse to catch up on HBO, laundry, stint at the gym and some soon to confess raiding of the Thanksgiving leftovers. While Kellen was at home Joy and I hit up Shake Shack. This burger joint has grown into a island phenomenon. We each hoovered down The Shack Burger, shared some fries and washed it down with an Arnold Palmer.

As Penny would say, "Amawzing".

We ended our day back at the pHouse, ordered in sushi (sorry no pictures. There was wine coupled with exhaustion), and finally this was the view from my guest room as we wrapped up dinner:

To recap this Thanksgiving I am thankful for:

1. Just Joni and Sister for being cool enough to let me leave town on Thanksgiving.

2. Boyfriend (update 2016 this didn't really work out) for being cool enough to let me leave town on Thanksgiving.

3. Joy and Kellen for being cool enough to let me invade their space for Thanksgiving.

4. Sassy Brooklynite Karen for sharing her Thanksgiving with a complete stranger and her willingness to share her story.

5. Al Roker for providing such wonderful commentary on a parade happening just two blocks from my temporary home.

Boo.

As the month of October is ending tomorrow I am going to open with an obligatory money shot of Halloween cookies.

Full disclosure...I hate making cutout cookies. Wait. Let me say that again. I hate decorating cut out cookies. Everything up to that point I love. There are far too many other people out there who can make a cut out cookie look like art. I personally love my drop cookies. Chocolate chip cookies to be exact. They are my favorite. But above you will see some Halloween sugar cookies with a powdered sugar glaze frosting. I toiled aaaaaaalllll day in the kitchen for Boyfriend (it had nothing to do with the fact that football season is upon us and the TV is no longer available for my usual Sunday TBS marathon of Mean Girls or Forrest Gump). The cookies are for his coworkers at The Lab. Thankfully he can still take home baked goods to work unlike the poor elementary students of today. After the cookies I whipped up a couple loaves of sandwich bread and then shackled myself to the stove to make us dinner. That's what I did today. Fully ignoring the mountain of paperwork on the desk. Well played Benjamin.

Now it has been a month since my last post. I have eaten, I have used my kitchen and I have even been gainfully employed in the food styling industry! The last month has been very busy working on a couple projects. I was very lucky to be called in on a Thanksgiving shoot for an online ad. I worked with some very talented food stylists who taught me a lot about the world of turkeys, mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables. After a few days off, some travel with Boyfriend and some time with the mannequins at the mall I got called by another studio to work on a grilling cookbook.

I have to admit that Just J (Dad) and sometimes Just Joni did most of the grilling back at the compound when I was young. I learned A LOT on this job. I learned that Korean Style Ribs can really only be found where your butcher is over the age of 50. I learned how to scale a fish. Red Snapper scales are still falling out of my clothes and backpack. I also learned that Red Snapper can leave the tip of your finger mildly numb weeks after it pierces it. And I learned that no amount of air freshener and driving with your windows down gets the smell of Snapper juice out of your poor little Honda Civic. Thankfully baking soda and 162 fresh baked hamburger buns got the smell out. I grilled a lot. But not as much as the lead food stylist. She was a grilling machine and was kind enough to give tutorials as she went along. Call me Hank Hill and get me a propane tank.

This last month included some meals out. I found myself in Duluth a few weekends back for a baby shower and Just Joni, Sister and myself enjoyed a great dinner at Clyde Iron in Duluth. Pictured above is the very tasty Pulled Chicken Hoagie with spicy pico de gallo, cilantro lime aioli and avocado. The fries were pretty much inhaled.

The following week I attended Finer Films Club with Finer Films Club co founder, D.

Finer Films meets about once a month to see a really bad film that our respective boyfriends/friends/family and general movie going public might ridicule us about. This month we picked the final Harry Potter film. Neither one of us had seen anything after the first in the series. If you also have not seen the whole franchise just check out the last one. You'll get caught up I think. Back to food. Finer Films started its evening at the Longfellow Grill in Minneapolis. I enjoyed a well made dijon chicken sandwich and glass of wine. I would share the photo but it was pretty bad on my part. And I took it before the wine was gone.

Last night Boyfriend and I entertained at home. I would have dinner guests a couple nights a week if I could. Last night we invited SAGL, Baby Doctor and Bone Doctor (they're a couple). I realized late on Friday that I had all the makings of a mini Thanksgiving in my pantry. So I threw together a stuffed roasted turkey breast (sadly Baby Doc is a veg so she only got to dine on the super dry extra stuffing - my apologies BD!), mashed potatoes and a pumpkin pie. Thankfully SAGF and The Doc's brought wine to share. We all had a great time and even left room to binge on some chocolate chip cookies (see above).

So I have to wrap up. Tomorrow I'm working as an assistant on a project that involves some attention in the kitchen. On a final note though I would like to share that a very long awaited project that I worked on has finally hit the stands. Please feel free to take a peek here or at your local bookstore very soon! Now you don't have to do this, but if you "click to look inside" you can see my name. With that self promotion I am going to bed. Good night and Happy Halloween (or Happy Ms. Stewart Day - girl really loves Halloween!).

benjamin plante

benjamin plante

benjamin plante

Turkey Tom, Penthouse in the Sky, and Al Roker

Hateful Fish, Harry Potter and Self Promotion

benjamin plante

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