Holiday Dinners: A Cooking Philosophy

Enlarge Image Image Gallery With preparation schedules, sample menus and instructive sidebars, chef Bradley Ogden takes the guesswork out of holiday dinner preparation so that you can spend less time in the kitchen and more time with the family. Cover Courtesy Running Press

Award-winning chef Bradley Ogden presents his first cookbook in over a decade. Holiday Dinners with Bradley Ogden (Running Press, 2011) includes 150 cherished recipes for a range of winter holidays — Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s — in one delicious guide for making the most memorable meals for the most special occasions. In this excerpt from the introduction, Ogden explains his love for food, family and where the two come together — the holiday dinner table. 

You can purchase this book from the GRIT store: Holiday Dinners with Bradley Ogden.

More Holiday Dinners with Bradley Ogden Recipes

Corn and Sage Stuffing Recipe
Winter Vegetable Salad Recipe  
Grilled Cornish Game Hens Recipe With Spiced Cherry Marinade
Three-Layer Pumpkin Pie Recipe 

People have many gifts in life — music, languages, painting, and even gab. Mine is a special talent for food. I spent the summers of my youth on my grandmother’s farm in Windsor, Ontario. In retrospect, this was the beginning of a fabulous career that I never could have recognized at the time. Both of my grandmothers were great cooks. I believe my mother was as well, although with seven children to look after, she seldom had the opportunity to really demonstrate what she knew. My father, on the other hand, considered himself the world’s greatest cook, and was especially known for his breads and homemade ice cream. Of course, the young spindly arms of my six brothers and sister and me were the engine for his churned creations. Nevertheless, to us, it wasn’t about hard labor but rather playing a game, resulting in a reward of creamy fresh flavors, from cherry to peach to strawberry, all of which we felt were awesome.