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Nell Newman's Organic Thanksgiving

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Some people criticize Newman’s Own Organics for, say, serving coffee with McDonald’s or partnering with Green Mountain Coffee.

Our intention is to help grow organic and introduce people to organic who might not necessarily be aware or interested in it. We are now using more organic coffee than ever before because of McDonald’s. And if the best way for me to introduce the world to organics is through coffee at McDonald’s then that’s OK with me! If you are a small coffee farmer in a Third World country, I think it’s fair to say, you would be happy the sales of organic coffee have gone up tremendously.

Do you grow your own food?

At my house in Santa Cruz, California, I grow my own salad greens, raspberries and grapes and, in the summer, amazing fraises du bois. I also have one white peach tree, one pear tree and one Meyer lemon tree. When the pears are ripe—you’ll love this—I put little blow-up mattresses, egg foam and one queen-size mattress under my fruit trees so I don’t lose the fruit when it falls.

What’s on the menu for Thanksgiving this year?

I’m lucky enough to get an organic heirloom turkey through Michel Nischan, who is the chef at the Dressing Room, my father’s year-old restaurant at the Westport Playhouse. This year I’m making a few small changes to our very traditional meal. I’m adding mint and shallots to the peas, pecans and brown sugar to the sweet potatoes, and maple syrup to the pecan pies that my mom makes. Of course we’ll be having stuffing, cranberry sauce and chopped salad, too—all organic, of course.

While the changes sound small, they actually pack huge flavor. The key for me is to keep things kind of simple because I usually fly in the day before Thanksgiving and I’m tired, so these recipes don’t require a lot of time to prepare.

With so many cooks in the family now, what happens in the Newman household on Thanksgiving Day?

Everyone has their own job to do: I’m in charge of overseeing everything and cooking the turkey. My mom makes the pies and Dad makes his famous homemade salad dressing. My sister Lissy makes the sweet potatoes and peas and my other sister Clea makes her special chopped salad.

To set the scene, we have kind of a family compound where my parents live in one farmhouse with a renovated barn and Lissy lives in the other farmhouse. The property is split by a river with a suspension bridge with one house on either side of it. Clea lives in the next town, so everyone is home for the holiday. Dinner is hosted at Lissy’s house, which is actually the home where we were all raised as children.

Thanksgiving Day goes something like this: I’m very particular about basting my turkey every 20 minutes, which can be pretty funny as the day progresses. I cook the 25-pound turkey in the kitchen at my parents’ barn, where I stay when I’m home. I run up to my folks’ house and help Mom bake the pecan pies, I run back to the barn to baste the turkey and then I literally run over the bridge and through the woods to Lissy’s house to help make the sweet potatoes and peas. Then I run back to the barn to baste again. I get more exercise than you can possibly imagine! When the turkey is ready I haul it over to Lissy’s with my husband, Gary, and join my parents and their two dogs, my two sisters and their husbands, my two nephews and the odd relative or family friend that may join us for the holiday.

It’s wonderful to be home again and seated around the table in the dining room of the 200-year-old New England farmhouse. The conversation around the table is lively, generally political and always controversial. At Christmas, we do it all over again and we have the very same meal!

—Kathy Oberman Tracy

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