tonight, my love, we stuff

If you had a chance to read my previous cooking-related post, then you know tonight is Stuffing Night. Call it "dressing" if you want, but as I've contended in the past, it's "toothpaste" whether it's inside or outside the tube, so by that logic, it's "stuffing" whether it's inside or outside the bird (because, after all, you could still stuff the bird, post hoc, with your "dressing," right?), and since one of my favorite YouTube chefs recently made "dressing" but called it "stuffing," I feel safe sticking with "stuffing" as the go-to term. I've never consciously called it "dressing"; I grew up hearing only "stuffing." Does this make me a bad language Nazi for not cleaving to a pedantic distinction? Maybe. Think what you will.

My stuffing tends to vary, especially when it comes to the bread I use. Some years, I use corn bread. This year, I'm back to good old white bread. While I love the baguette-like, gossamer texture of Korean milk bread (yes, also made in Japan and China; you all can fight over who did milk bread first, but I think Japan wins), it's too soft for crouton-making. My grocery doesn't sell anything like Wonder Bread, but they do sell their own version of generic white bread, albeit in half-loaves because everything has to be smaller in Korea. So this year, white bread is my base. I made croutons and sage-y, maple-y breakfast sausage last night; tonight, I sauté some diced mushrooms and celery, cook down some diced apples (no cinnamon and sugar this year; last year, that seemed overpowering), boil and crumble a mess of chestnuts, add raisins, then herb the whole thing up with sage, rosemary, and thyme (parsley made it into the song, but it rarely makes it into stuffing). Expect pictures tonight.

Tomorrow: eppel peh, as Cartman would say. Apple pie.

ADDENDUM: Adam Ragusea on stuffing versus dressing. I think, overall, he sides with me.