By Thanksgiving. I brought the dressing. I made it fully alone in my Birmingham kitchen on Wednesday, starting with cornbread I baked the day before, crumbling it with toasted white bread, cooking the celery and onion and adding the broth and eggs and herbs and tasting and adjusting until it was exactly right. I drove it to Prattville in a covered dish on Thursday morning.
When I put it on the table and uncovered it, it was golden and fragrant and looked exactly the way Gloria dressing has always looked. She lifted the serving spoon and tasted a bite from the dish. She was quiet for a moment. Then she said: you have the dressing now.
You have the dressing now. She means it the same way she meant you have the custard now and you have the biscuits now and you can cook, girl. She means: the knowledge transferred. You carry it. It is yours. I sat at that table for the fourth Thanksgiving in the Martin house and we ate the meal that I had largely cooked, the first time in my life I have been the primary cook at a Thanksgiving table, and James said grace and named me in it again and I looked at my hands in my lap and breathed through the feeling of being somewhere you belong.
After dinner I sat in the kitchen with Gloria while James napped in his chair. She said: what do you want next? I said: I want to keep going. She said: yes. I know. I mean specifically. I said: I think I want to do research. I think I want to understand why some children who start in hard places find their way to okay and why others do not, and what we can do about it. She said: that is a good thing to want. Yes. It is.
After the dressing was done and the table was cleared and Gloria had said the thing she said, I sat in that kitchen and felt strangely calm — the way you feel when something you’ve been working toward finally lands. The dressing was mine now, and so was the meal, and so was the seat. When I got back to Birmingham I wanted to cook something quiet and grounding, something that reminded me of a holiday table without being the whole production — and this almond wild rice is exactly that. Nutty and fragrant and a little bit celebratory, the kind of side dish that says: I know what I’m doing in here.
Almond Wild Rice
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 1 cup wild rice, rinsed
- 2 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 small yellow onion, finely diced
- 2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon dried sage
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Instructions
- Toast the almonds. In a dry skillet over medium heat, toast the slivered almonds, stirring frequently, until golden and fragrant, about 3–4 minutes. Set aside.
- Sauté the aromatics. In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
- Add the rice and seasoning. Stir in the wild rice, thyme, and sage. Season with salt and pepper. Toast the rice with the butter and aromatics for 1–2 minutes.
- Simmer. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover tightly, and simmer for 40–45 minutes, until the rice is tender and most grains have begun to split open. Check at 40 minutes — wild rice can vary.
- Finish and serve. Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff gently with a fork. Fold in toasted almonds and fresh parsley. Taste and adjust salt. Serve warm.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 210 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 10g | Carbs: 25g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 310mg