Date Nut Log — The Kind of Sweet That Keeps Through the Quiet Days

Post-Thanksgiving and the house emptied out Saturday morning the way it always does, Sarah's car the last to pull out at eleven, Lucy waving from the back seat with the same wave she had at six and at twelve and at twenty, the wave that has not yet learned to be self-conscious. The house went quiet at eleven-oh-three and stayed quiet for the rest of the day, the dog and I making turkey stock from the carcass at the kitchen counter, the stockpot at a low simmer for five hours, the smell of turkey and onion and bay and peppercorn the smell of every post-Thanksgiving Saturday for forty years.

The leftovers were arranged in the second refrigerator with the same logic Helen used to use — the white meat in one container for sandwiches, the dark meat in another for hash and pot pie, the dressing in its own box, the gravy frozen in two-cup portions, the cranberry sauce in a wide-mouth jar to be eaten with everything for the next two weeks. I made turkey hash Sunday morning the way she made it: dark meat chopped fine, leftover potato, onion sweated soft, the whole thing pressed flat in the cast iron and crisped on both sides until the underside was a single mahogany crust, then the eggs cracked over the top and the lid on for two minutes to set the whites. I ate it at the table by the window with a slice of brown bread and the leftover cranberry sauce and looked at the bare lawn and the bare maples and thought that this is the day I always like best in the season — not the holiday itself, with its crowd and its noise and its full table, but the day after, when the work has been done and the people have gone and what remains is the food and the quiet and the proof that the gathering happened.

Made turkey pot pie Tuesday evening — the dark meat, the leftover gravy, peas and carrots from the freezer, a top crust of biscuit dough rolled to a quarter inch and laid over the bubbling filling and baked for forty minutes until the crust came up gold and crackled. The pot pie is the second-best thing that happens to a Thanksgiving turkey. The first-best is the sandwich on Friday night with the salt and the cold gravy and the white bread that Helen always insisted on for sandwiches, no matter what other bread was in the house. I do not argue with the sandwich rule. The bread is in the freezer year-round for exactly this purpose.

The first real snow came Wednesday — three inches, dry and quiet, falling all morning and accumulating on the back porch and the woodpile and the still-bare flowerbeds along the south side. I shoveled the path from the back door to the woodshed and the path from the front door to the road, the same paths I have shoveled my entire adult life, and the muscle memory of it is so deep that the body does it without consultation with the mind, the shovel finding the snow and lifting and tossing and finding again, the rhythm older than thought. The light was the gray-blue that first-snow afternoons have, the kind that makes the kitchen window look like a painting from inside the house, and I came in cold and red-cheeked and stood by the woodstove and let the heat work into me the way I have let it work into me for sixty years, and the dog stood beside me, and the kettle came on for tea, and the day became the kind of day a man retires for, even if he does not always remember that he retired for it.

Helen used to make a date nut log every year in the days after Thanksgiving, when the big cooking was finished and what remained was the pleasant, unhurried kind — the kind done without a clock or a guest list. It was never a centerpiece recipe, never the thing anyone asked for by name, but it appeared on the counter in its wax paper wrapping and got sliced thin and eaten slowly through the first week of December, a piece with tea in the afternoon, a piece with coffee in the morning, until it was gone and the season had moved on. I made one Wednesday, the snow still on the ground, the woodstove warm, the dog asleep on the rug — the right conditions for the right recipe.

Date Nut Log

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 30 min + 2 hr chilling | Servings: 24 slices

Ingredients

• 2 cups pitted dates, roughly chopped
• 1 cup miniature marshmallows
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans, toasted
• 2 cups crispy rice cereal
• 1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut, for rolling

Instructions

1. Toast the nuts. In a dry skillet over medium heat, toast the chopped walnuts or pecans for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until fragrant and lightly golden. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
2. Cook the date mixture. In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the chopped dates, marshmallows, butter, sugar, and salt. Stir constantly until the butter melts and the marshmallows dissolve into a smooth, cohesive mixture, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat.
3. Add vanilla and mix-ins. Stir in the vanilla extract, then fold in the toasted nuts and crispy rice cereal until evenly combined. Let the mixture cool for 5 minutes — it should be firm enough to handle but still pliable.
4. Shape the log. Spread the coconut in a thin, even layer on a sheet of wax paper. Turn the date mixture out onto the coconut and shape it by hand into a log roughly 10 to 12 inches long and 2 inches in diameter, rolling gently to coat the outside evenly with coconut.
5. Wrap and chill. Wrap the log tightly in the wax paper, twisting the ends closed. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight, until firm throughout.
6. Slice and serve. Unwrap and slice into 1/2-inch rounds with a sharp knife. Serve at room temperature. Store wrapped in wax paper in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 145 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 19g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 45mg