I always serve tenderloin at Christmas. People tell me they’re afraid to make one because the meat is expensive and they don’t want to ruin it, but it’s really so simple and incredibly elegant.

Here are seven steps to ensure success:

1. Start with a really good tenderloin.
2. If you don’t know how to trim it, have someone do it for you.
3. Let it come up to room temperature before roasting.
4. Rub the meat well with olive oil, freshly cracked black pepper, Kosher salt and some sort of seasoned salt. I love the earthy taste that porcini powder gives the crust.
5. Roast the beef for 18-20 minutes, or until you the center is springy and flexible.
6. Take it out and let it rest for at least 10 minutes.
7. Serve it with horseradish cream. Don’t be tempted to use fresh horseradish. Use the prepared and mix it with heavy whipped cream, a little lemon juice and salt.
8. Slice it with a very sharp knife and serve.

The beauty of the tenderloin is that it can be cooked ahead of time and left sitting in the kitchen while you sit and enjoy the holiday with family and friends.

Merry everything, everyone. May your buffet tables and hearts be full of good things.

Roast Tenderloin of Beef

• 1 3-4 pound beef tenderloin
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Porcini mushroom powder (optional)
• Olive oil

Make sure meat is close to room temperature before roasting.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place meat on a baking sheet. Pour olive oil on beef to coat entire tenderloin. Season with generous amount of salt and pepper, plus porcini powder, if using.

Place beef in oven and roast for 18-20 minutes or until 120 degrees in the center. If no thermometer, touch meat in center top area. Should be easily pressed.

Remove to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minute before slicing.

Note: Porcini powder can be found in some gourmet stores. If not, make your own by placing dried mushrooms in a Cuisinart with a steel blade and process until you have a ground powder.

A few weeks ago, I went to New York City for a meeting and met a group of girlfriends for dinner at The Carlyle. Built in 1930 and named for the British essayist Thomas Carlyle, the iconic Upper East Side hotel is a true Manhattan landmark. The Prince of Wales has stayed there. Diana herself stayed there. And what did I do there?

I ate hot dogs.

My friend Nancy is a regular in Bemelmans Bar, an art deco lounge where the ceiling is covered in 24-karat gold leaf. Looking down the list of snacks, I saw Osetra caviar, a charcuterie plate, steak tartar with toast points and mini hot dogs.

Five hot dogs. For $19.

I thought, really? Hot dogs at the Carlyle? Then I saw that they were made with Kobe beef and served on brioche buns with housemade relish. And so I had to have them.

They brought out one for each of us. They were bite-size and exquisite. Afterwards we went into the main restaurant and had everything from lobster thermidor to Grand Mariner soufflé, but nothing more fun and fabulous than those tiny hot dogs.

Shortly after I got home, I went to LaGrange, Georgia, for another meeting and spent a little time driving around the town beforehand. Right off the square was a place called Charlie Joseph’s that’d been there since 1920. The sign said they had “world’s best hot dogs,” which piqued my attention for two reasons:

1. I’d just had what I thought was world’s best hot dog.
2. I was starving.

The place is run by Joey Keeth, the grandson of Charlie Joseph himself. And according to the website, Joey is also a good man to call if you need tennis lessons or your tennis racket restrung.

The menu is basic: hot dogs, burgers, chicken salad sandwiches and sweet tea. I only had eyes for the chili slaw dog with relish, which is something I eat once every five years or so. It wasn’t made of Kobe beef—I don’t even want to think about what it was made of—but it was exactly what I wanted it to be.

At the 2012 Southern Chefs Potluck, Watershed chef Joe Truex and I started talking about chicken and rice and all the different takes on it around the world. It gave me an idea to create a chicken-and-rice competition between chefs for the 2013 Potluck auction, invite 20 people to eat and judge and call it a “cluck off.” I immediately texted Anne Quatrano to see if she’d participate and she texted yes right back.

Fast forward to the 2013 Potluck, where the Cluck Off went up for live auction as one of the chef experience packages. My daughter, Garnie, won it and Anne—who claimed she’d never agreed to participate—said, “Do you not feed your child, Marie?”

(Just another part of her dry sense of humor that very few people get to see.)

Now let’s fast forward again to a few weeks ago: It’s three days before the Cluck Off, I have no idea what I’m making and I’m starting to wonder if I was delusional when I came up with the idea.

I didn’t want to do something I’d done before and I knew Anne was going to show up and blow us out of the water. But at some point I stopped sweating bullets and started cooking.

Joe did baked chicken with red rice—simple, Southern and delicious. And of course Anne did exactly what I’d predicted: She came with Vietnamese chicken lettuce wraps with flash-fried rice and all kinds of condiments on the side, including housemade fish sauce, radishes, carrots, pickles, cilantro and lettuce she got from a farm in north Georgia. It was off-the-charts amazing.

I took boneless, skinless chicken thighs and marinated them in honey, bourbon, lemon, olive oil and Tabasco overnight, then roasted them in the oven for about 10 minutes. I peeled, chopped and roasted butternut squash with leeks. Sauteed collards with onion and combined everything over rice with some chopped peanuts and scallions on top.

It may look like a long list of ingredients and steps, but once you have all the elements in place, it comes together beautifully.

Honey Bourbon Roasted Chicken Thighs with Collards, Butternut Squash and Rice

• Serves 6
• 12 chicken thighs, skinless
• 12 strips bacon
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons bourbon
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 1 preserved lemon, minced
• 6 dashes Tabasco
• 6 cups collards, ribbed and julienned
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 cups butternut squash, peeled and cubed
• 2 leeks, sliced
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• Kosher salt
• 2 cups jasmine rice
• 1/3 cup roasted peanuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup scallions, sliced

Place chicken thighs in a ziploc bag. Mix the marinade ingredients in a bowl and pour into the bag. Place in refrigerator and marinate for at least 2 hours or over night.

Place rice, 4 cups water and 2 teaspoons salt in a pot. Bring to boil, then turn down to lowest heat, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Set aside with top on to retain heat.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Place squash and leeks in a bowl. Toss with oil and season with salt. Put on baking sheet and place in oven and roast until tender.

Remove thighs from bag and drain. Wrap each thigh with a bacon strip and secure with toothpick. Place on baking sheet and cook along with squash. 15-20 minutes or until can easily pierce with fork.

Place both squash and thighs in warming drawer or low set oven when ready.

Heat a skillet or Dutch oven with olive oil and sauté collards until tender. Season with salt to taste.

Assembly:

On large platter, layer the rice, then collards, squash, chicken thighs. Garnish with peanuts and scallions.

One of the many fabulous recipes chef Joe Truex made during this visit to the Southern Chefs Series—the final one for 2014—was Gumbo Z’Herbes. Much like his gumbo, Joe has many layers. One might be tempted to put him in the country boy category, especially when he says things like …

Today is as bad as it gets at Serenbe. As good as that is, tomorrow is sure to be a little mo’ better.

But Joe is an extremely well read CIA graduate who went from one wildly popular Atlanta restaurant (Repast) to another (Watershed). He’s also a very humble, subtly funny man and a native of Louisiana, where you’re only as good as your last batch of gumbo.

To say it was delicious is an understatement. To say it had a few ingredients is also an understatement. Mustard greens, collard greens, turnips, watercress, beet tops, carrot tops, lettuce, cabbage … and then the meats. Dear God, the meats! There was a pound each of smoked sausage, smoked ham, boneless brisket and hot tasso, that deliciously spicy Creole pork shoulder.

Joe’s recipe is an adaptation of a gumbo made by Leah Chase, one of the grand dames of New Orleans cooking and longtime executive chef of Dookey Chase’s Restaurant in the Tremé. Before our wedding in 1983, Steve’s friends kidnapped and blindfolded him, then flew him to New Orleans for the night. They had dinner at Dookey Chase’s—one of many legendary things that happened that evening, I’m sure.

Gumbo Z’Herbes

• Serves 8 generously
• 1 bunch mustard greens
• 1 bunch collard greens
• 1 bunch turnips
• 1 bunch watercress
• 1 bunch beet tops
• 1 bunch carrot tops
• 1 bunch spinach
• ½ head lettuce
• ½ head cabbage
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, mashed and chopped
• Water (2-3 quarts)
• 1 pound smoked sausage
• 1 pound smoked ham
• 1 pound boneless brisket
• 1 pound hot tasso
• 5 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoons thyme leaves
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon filé powder
• Steamed rice

Clean all vegetables, making sure to pick up bad leaves and rinse away all grit. Place all vegetables, onions and garlic in a large pot and cover with water. Boil for 30 minutes.

While this is boiling, cut all sausages and meats into bite-size pieces and set aside. Keep tasso pieces separate.

Strain vegetables after boiling and reserve liquid. Place all meats, except tasso, and 2 cups of reserved liquid (save the rest) in a 12-quart stockpot. Steam over high fire for 15 minutes.

While steaming other meats, place the tasso in a skillet over a high fire and stem until tasso is rendered (all grease cooked out), about 10 minutes. Remove the tasso and set aside, keeping the grease in the skillet.

All vegetables must be pureed. This can be done in a food processor or by hand in a meat grinder.

Heat the skillet of tasso grease over a high fire and stir in the flour. Cook this roux for 5 minutes or until floor is cooked (it does not have to brown). Pour roux over meat mixture; stir well. Add vegetables and the remaining two quarts of reserved liquid. Let simmer over a low fire for 20 minutes. Add tasso, thyme, salt and cayenne; stir well.

Simmer for 40 minutes. Add filé powder, stir will and remove from fire. Serve over steamed rice.

Thanksgiving in the Nygren family is a little less traditional than you might think. When the girls were little and their schools closed for the holiday, we’d take family trips to places like Disney World and Mexico. And when they got older, the whole family pitched in to make Thanksgiving dinner at The Farmhouse a success, often waiting until the end of the night to eat the last few shreds of turkey and dressing.

But we were together, doing what we all do best: Creating an atmosphere where people can enjoy good food … and each other.

That’s the thing about family—we’re together, even when we’re apart. This year, my daughter Kara will spend Thanksgiving with her fiancé, Micah. That’s right, I said “fiancé.” Kara is officially engaged and we will have the first Nygren wedding next fall.

I’m grateful every year for the girls, my family and Serenbe, but this year I’m especially grateful for Micah. I could not have picked a more amazing person to be my daughter’s husband or my son-in-law.

What makes Thanksgiving special isn’t the turkey or the dressing or the buttery crust under your pumpkin pie. It’s the people around the table. The people on the phone. The people sitting next to you on that beach or bench in the middle of Epcot.

When the stars and plans align and we are all around the same table again, I plan to make this arugula salad full of roasted pears, pecans, cheddar cheese and an incredibly easy white balsamic vinaigrette. And we’ll eat and talk and laugh and my heart will be full of love and gratitude. Whether it’s November 27th, December 13^th or January 27^th, that’s Thanksgiving to me.

Arugula with Roasted Pears, Pecans, Cheddar Cheese and White Balsamic Vinaigrette

Serves 6-8

• 8 cups arugula, washed
• Roasted pears, recipe follows
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
• 4-6 oz sharp white cheddar, shaved into thin strips with vegetable peeler

White balsamic vinaigrette, recipe follows

• Roasted pears:
• 4 firm Bartlett Pears, cored and cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons honey

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place baking sheet in oven to heat. Combine butter and honey in bowl. Add pears and toss to coat.

Put pieces on heated pan, making sure each slice is flat on surface. Place in oven and roast for 10 minutes until browned. Flip slices and roast another 5- 10 until golden brown. Remove and let cool.

• Vinaigrette :
• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Combine vinegar, honey and salt. Whisk in oil until combined.

To assemble:

Place arugula in a bowl. Toss greens with vinagrette. Place greens on plates. Top with roasted pears, then cheese slices and pecan pieces.

At the first Afternoon in the Country, a benefit for the Atlanta chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier International held annually at Serenbe, a grassroots team of volunteers assembled old wooden folding tables from a church and made directional signs out of #10 cans, lumber and nails to guide 150 people to their seats.

Fourteen years later, it is a sold out event with people coming to Serenbe a few Sundays ago to sample food from 60 chefs, plus wine, beer, liquor and coffee vendors. There was a silent auction and cake raffle. And it was all held under five tents with massive electrical that took the better part of a week to set up.

Though the surroundings have upped their game a bit, the feel of Afternoon in the Country is the same as it was 14 years ago. This is no parking lot food festival—it’s held on the green grounds on The Inn with gorgeous fall trees all around and the smells of the season in the air. It was the kind of day when you’re just in love with everyone and everything. And people can’t get enough: It is the most successful Les Dames fundraiser in the United States.

This is the first year I didn’t do a dish, which left me free to socialize and sample other chefs’ dishes. Chef Steven Satterfield did a lovely chicken stew with White Oak Pastures chicken and Anson Mills polenta. Kevin Gillespie was up all night cooking a pig, which he pulled and put on a homemade bun with coleslaw. And Anne Quatrano did all kinds of hand pies—some sweet, some savory, all delicious.