The Star’s 2016 Thanksgiving menu brings together diverse flavors, cultures

After America’s contentious and rancorous 2016 presidential campaign season, Thanksgiving dinner probably can’t come soon enough.

The national holiday calls for us to sit down at the table with family and friends regardless of politics: To heal over a meal.

Many weeks before the votes were tallied, I was at work on our Thanksgiving issue. For the past couple of years, I’ve orchestrated a virtual communal feast for Star readers. I tap noteworthy local chefs to share their favorite recipes by assigning them a dish — turkey, stuffing, vegetable sides, dessert, etc. — but leaving it up to them exactly what they will contribute.

As I test the recipes and tweak proportions so they work for a home cook, then photograph them in our studio, I’m always fascinated to see how miraculously the traditional and eclectic dishes always somehow wind up working together.

This year I asked chef Carlos Falcon to bring the turkey. Falcon, who owns Jarocho Pescados y Mariscos in Kansas City, Kan., is known for his artistry with seafood, but he easily tapped into his Mexican roots to create a guajillo rub that adds a whole new dimension to the turkey.

The result was what all good cooks strive for: Succulent poultry and no gravy woes — the braising liquid of chicken stock and orange juice can be used as a pan jus.

Elise Landry of Bluestem contributed a more traditional but fresh, out-of-the-box take on stuffing. Katee McLean, chef and co-owner of Krokstrom Klubb & Market, offered up a cheesy carrot casserole, with an interesting nod to her family’s Swedish heritage.

Nick Goellner, a congressional-aide-turned-chef and owner of the Antler Room, took a trendy vegetable — cauliflower — and shook up his family’s traditional menu with an exotic Mediterranean-inspired roasted vegetable dish spiked with olives, anchovies, lemon and tahini.

Of course, there is a time for bucking tradition and a time for sticking to it. For Meg Heriford of Ladybird Diner in Lawrence, a blueberry-basil pie is simply too esoteric for this time of year. “We try to do what people feel most connected to,” she says of the diner’s Thanksgiving pie offerings.

She shares her popular sweet potato pie, which is time-consuming but rich and decadent in its rewards. Warning: You absolutely won’t be able to stop eating the addictive cayenne-spiced pralines.

To stitch the diverse menu together, wine expert Doug Frost offers an array of suggestions from beer and wine to sherry and bubbly. And he makes specific suggestions for each of our chefs’ dishes.

Whether serving the meal on china with silver or on paper plates, going family-style without assigned seats is a surefire way to encourage guests to break bread together. This year’s menu is displayed on functional, no-frills plates and dishes by local Kansas City ceramicist Tara Dawley of Hoop Dog Studio.

Meanwhile, Falcon recalls his mother never had enough money to buy matching dishes so the family always ate off an eclectic array of plates. Today, Falcon continues the tradition at his restaurant, using different plates to serve masterpieces made of mackerel, abalone and squid.

Place settings, like political leanings, do not have to match for us to move forward.

Falcon recalls one Christmas when his mother dropped the tamales she toiled for a day over on the floor and was unable to salvage the meal.

That’s OK, he says: “Even the mistakes give you material to talk about for years.”

This story was originally published November 15, 2016 at 8:00 AM with the headline "The Star’s 2016 Thanksgiving menu brings together diverse flavors, cultures."