The best part of Thanksgiving is leftovers. (And togetherness and gratitude and blah blah blah. Mostly, it’s pumpkin pie for breakfast.) But there always seems to be way too much cranberry sauce, and very few ways to use it once the leftover turkey is eaten up. When I found myself with both a half-gone can of cranberry sauce and a bowl of persimmons from my dad’s tree ripening forlornly in the fridge, I decided to try and use them both up at once. Et voilà, this slightly sweet tea cake filled with little bites of persimmon, walnuts and bursting cranberries. The cake is dairy-free, extremely low in fat, and particularly good for breakfast (though not as good as pumpkin pie).

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“Word on the Street,”  a food-themed downtown L.A. block party on November 20, comes to you via the Cornerstone Theater Company, and is the finale for their month-long “exploration of hunger.” The block party will feature food trucks and local restaurant fare, a communal dining table, and a video booth to share stories about hunger. Their five-year project “The Hunger Cycle” aims to bring attention to world hunger and food justice issues, via theatrical performances and other events. Upcoming “Hunger Cycle” projects include a spring 2012 residency at the Homegirl Cafe and a spring 2013 residency in a school cafeteria.

Where: Downtown L.A.
Traction Ave. between Hewitt & 3rd

When: Sunday, November 20, 2011
12pm – 4pm

The event is FREE.

Once November rolls around, I find myself looking for as many ways as possible to use cranberry sauce. It’s my favorite part of holiday eating–I consider turkey a cranberry-sauce delivery system, and pile it on accordingly–and I’m always thrilled to come across unexpected uses for the stuff. (Cranberry-sauce margaritas are a tradition of mine–I’ll post that recipe soon–and I’m trying to perfect a cranberry-sauce-based tea cake…) So I was pretty thrilled when, at a recent breakfast at Follow Your Heart in Canoga Park, I was served delightful fresh pumpkin pancakes topped with maple syrup and, yes, cranberry sauce! The pancakes are standard-issue whole wheat, studded with diced, cooked pumpkin. And the sauce is your typical canned variety, all bursting berries and oozy red syrup. But the overall effect was surprising, not too  sweet, and totally comforting. Forget the holiday rigmarole–serve these tasty cakes with some turkey bacon and a persimmon-rosemary bellini, and you’ve got a Thanksgiving brunch!

After his intriguing appearance on the Colbert Report in 2008, I invited David Gracer, entomophagy (insect eating) advocate, to write up his manifesto for Spooning. That piece is worth a gander, as is this new video from The Perennial Plate series, featuring Gracer and chef Daniel Klein hunting and cooking up some edible insects. (And no, I have no idea either why they used “Tried by 12,” Spencer Bellamy’s hip-hop ballad about inner city violence, as the soundtrack for harvesting katydids with butterfly nets…)

The Perennial Plate Episode 78: Eating Insects from Daniel Klein on Vimeo.