Focaccia Bread Squares

Thanksgiving week and the planning began Monday morning with the turkey order placed by phone to the Yandow farm in Charlotte, the same eighteen-pound bird from the same farm at the same price as last year, picked up Tuesday afternoon along with a dozen of the hard cider donuts that Yandow's daughter makes in the season and that I am incapable of declining when offered. The donuts go in the bread box for the morning. The turkey goes in the second refrigerator in the back room, the old one that I keep running for exactly this kind of week. Sarah and Tom and Ben and Lucy are coming up from Portland and Maine, David and Karen and Teddy and Anna and James from Montpelier — all five grandchildren grown enough now to make their own travel decisions, all five having decided to come, which is a tally that gets harder to assemble every year and that I do not take for granted.

I read Helen's turkey card Wednesday morning, which I do every year on the day before Thanksgiving, even though I have known the recipe by heart for thirty-five years. The card itself is yellowed at the edges and the original notation in her hand has faded in two places where the gravy splattered and was wiped, and the additional note she added the year before she died — the giblets note — is in slightly bolder ink, which makes me wonder now whether she added it knowing something or just knowing me. Both, probably. Both is usually the answer. I checked the cavity twice as I always do now, the giblets came out exactly where they were supposed to be, and the turkey went into the brine for its overnight stay in the cold pantry.

The day itself proceeded the way Thanksgivings proceed when the planning has been done correctly: the early start, the bird in by ten, the dressing assembled at the counter while Sarah took over the potatoes and Karen took over the green beans and David poured the cider for the boys who are not boys anymore, James (twenty-eight) and Teddy (thirty-four) standing at the back door looking at the yard with the particular slow conversation of brothers who do not need to fill the silence. Ben (thirty) sat at the kitchen table with a book the way I would have sat at his age, and Anna (thirty-one) and Lucy (twenty-seven) made cranberry sauce together and laughed about something I did not catch and did not need to catch, because the laughing was the point. The turkey came out at three-fifteen looking exactly the way Helen's turkey always looked, which is the way it has looked every year since 1980, give or take. We sat down at four. Twelve of us when we counted Tom and Karen, plus me, plus the dog. Frost ate the turkey skin under the table and we all pretended not to notice and the table was full and the house was warm and the woodstove was crackling and Helen was somewhere in the kitchen, in the recipe card, in the giblet check, in the brown gravy that I made from the pan drippings the way she taught me with the technique she would not let me deviate from.

After dinner the grandchildren did the dishes — all five of them in the kitchen at once, a thing that has not happened since they were small, the kitchen full of them and I sat in the living room with David and Sarah and a cup of coffee and we listened to them. Sarah said: dad, listen to that. I said: I am listening. We did not say anything else. We did not need to. That sound — five grown grandchildren in a kitchen washing the dishes from the meal their grandfather cooked — was the entire Thanksgiving. The food was just the means. The sound was the end.

The dressing I assembled at the counter on Thanksgiving morning has always needed the right bread — something with enough structure to hold the herbs and drippings without going to mush, and enough flavor of its own to earn its place on Helen’s table. These focaccia squares are what I make the day before, while the turkey is still in the brine and the house is just beginning to smell like the holiday it is about to become. Twelve people at the table means you need bread that can do more than one thing, and focaccia, cut into squares and left to cool on the rack overnight, does exactly that.

Prep Time: 20 minutes + 1 hour rise | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (1 packet)
1 1/2 cups warm water (110°F)
1 teaspoon sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, chopped (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon flaky sea salt, for topping
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves (optional)

Instructions

Activate the yeast. Combine warm water, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl. Let sit 5–10 minutes until foamy.
Mix the dough. Add flour, kosher salt, and 3 tablespoons of the olive oil to the yeast mixture. Stir until a shaggy dough forms, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 6–8 minutes until smooth and slightly tacky.
First rise. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean towel, and let rise in a warm spot for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Prepare the pan. Pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a 9x13-inch baking pan and spread to coat. Transfer the risen dough to the pan and gently press it out to fill the pan. Cover and let rest 15 minutes.
Dimple and top. Use your fingertips to press deep dimples across the entire surface of the dough. Drizzle the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the top. Scatter rosemary, thyme (if using), garlic powder, and flaky sea salt evenly across the surface.
Bake. Preheat oven to 425°F. Bake 20–25 minutes until the top is deep golden and the edges pull away from the pan. The bottom should sound hollow when tapped.
Cool and cut. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes before cutting into squares. For dressing, cut into 1-inch cubes and leave uncovered overnight to dry slightly.

Nutrition (per serving)

Focaccia Bread Squares — The Bread That Belongs on a Thanksgiving Table