Food is very important to me, so my dream dinner would look a lot like Thanksgiving. I come from a big family. I have three sisters — Lori, Dana, and Tracy — and among us, we have 11 children. The person I’d want to bring back for my dream dinner is my father, who left us in 2018. In fact, my last really happy memory of him was Thanksgiving 2017. It was two months before he died, but he was so happy to be surrounded by his kids and grandkids. 

My whole family is serious about food. My sisters and mother have published cookbooks. In my parents’ house we have this very long table that seats 20 people. Every time new grandkids were born, my parents hired a woodworker to extend it. So he’s added a leaf and then another and another. When the table reached the back wall, my father added an extension, changing the envelope of the house to accommodate the bigger table. So now the house has a leaf too. 

The house has a big kitchen, so everybody would be pitching in. Somebody would be working on the salad, somebody would be working on the chicken, somebody would be cleaning dishes. Everybody would have a glass of wine. Everybody would be getting confused: Is that my wine, or is that your wine? My dad would be at the table, holding court with anyone who wasn’t in the kitchen. He’d play classical music very loud, and we’d be trying to turn it off. 

My ultimate comfort food would be roasted spatchcock chicken. I say this as someone who hasn’t eaten meat in three years, but if it’s my dream meal, I’m going for it. I’d want a whole chicken that’s been brined overnight. I’d get a bunch of winter vegetables — brussels sprouts, carrots, squash, potatoes — toss them with olive oil, put them at the bottom of a Le Creuset and spread the chicken above them, so the vegetables cook in the juices from the chicken. It would be a pastured chicken, one that lived outside and got to eat bugs and grass — not a feedlot or confinement chicken, a happy chicken.

My sisters would make what they call the Pollan signature salad, which has candied nuts and Parmesan cheese. We’d have olives for sure — Castelvetranos — and maybe some hummus and crackers for appetizers.

I really love Harbison cheese. It’s made by Jasper Hill in Vermont. For dessert, I would make a vegan lemon olive oil cake. Even though my work lately deals with psychedelics, there’s not really a psychedelic angle to this meal. I suppose we could include some mushrooms with the vegetables. If I’m lucky enough to find them, some morels or chanterelles, so we can honor the psychedelics with other kinds of mushrooms.

A pinot noir from California would be great to pair with this meal. Sean Thackrey, a wonderful small garagiste producer who recently passed away, made the most beautiful pinot noirs. He made a blend called Pleiades, named after the constellation. 

The other thing we do when the whole family gets together is that we go around the table and everybody says what they’re grateful for. And we don’t eat until we’ve done that. I would savor those final words as much as the meal.