Cape CopCast
Welcome to "The Cape CopCast," the official podcast of the Cape Coral Police Department.
Hosted by Officer Mercedes Simonds, and Lisa Greenberg from our Public Affairs team, this podcast dives into the heart of Cape Coral PD's public safety, community initiatives, and the inner workings of our police department. Each episode brings you insightful discussions, interviews with key community figures, and expert advice on safety.
Cape CopCast
Chief's Chat #5: Thanksgiving Traditions & the "Pilgrim Sub"
Thanksgiving is all about family, food, and fun memories! Join hosts Lisa Greenberg and Officer Mercedes Simonds as they take you on a nostalgic journey through their beloved Thanksgiving celebrations on the Cape CopCast "Chief's Chat." From sweet potato casserole and gruyere cheese scalloped potatoes, to Mission Barbecue, to Chief Sizemore's unique leftover tradition, you'll hear stories that will make you smile and maybe even inspire your own holiday menu. And if you're not a cook, Lisa's got a Whole Foods hack that'll have your guests thinking you're a culinary genius.
Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Cop cast. We're going to spend today talking a little bit about our Thanksgiving and Black Friday traditions. For our edition of the Chief's Chat today, I'm Lisa Greenberg and I'm Officer Mercedes Simons.
Speaker 2:Together we make up the Public Affairs Office Chief. How was your Thanksgiving?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm stuffed. I'm still stuffed. It was great. How about you guys?
Speaker 1:Good, I got plenty of scalloped potatoes, which is always my favorite, so I'm set. What about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's actually really fun doing combined Thanksgiving. Since, being married, chris's mom came over and his family and everything like that, so I don't just have one mom's cooking. That was fantastic. I have two moms, because his mom is also just exquisite. She makes this sweet potato casserole that just cannot be beat. I make some and I thought it was good and then I had hers. I was wrong.
Speaker 1:I love any potato.
Speaker 3:I think we got a good idea for today. Why don't we talk about food, traditions and what you like?
Speaker 2:Well, actually my favorite food tradition probably has been Mission Barbecue for the last many years, not because that's what my family eats, but that's because it's what my blue family eats at this department, and even at my old department I think, we always had Mission Barbecue. Stop by and bring us a bunch of food and brisket. So I don't really associate Thanksgiving with turkey all the time. Sometimes it's like brisket and mac and cheese, but as long as the mac and cheese is there, I am set.
Speaker 1:I was going to say Mission is good, so that's not a bad thing. Shout out Mission Barbecue.
Speaker 3:As long as you're uncomfortably full after it's Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:For sure, you got to loosen the belt notches a few.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There are certain Thanksgivings we've had where we're like oh, I'm not chasing anybody today. I would say I kind of mentioned it, but my mom makes these Gruyere cheese scallop potatoes every year and elevated. Oh my gosh, they are the best thing I've ever eaten, like so good, and I just really love any potato in any form. So we have to have the mashed potatoes too. We have the scallop potatoes. I like the sweet potato. I will say I'm usually in charge of the sweet potato. I'm not much of a cook, so my secret, my hack, is to go to Whole Foods, get their version of the sweet potatoes, which has like some brown sugar and cinnamon. I add more and I add marshmallows to it and then I broil it and you know, for a few years I took credit, but then finally I owned up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you put it in a different pan? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you like make it look fancy you know Very cool. It's tasty.
Speaker 3:We do very traditional Thanksgiving food, high-end, all scratch-made, but the atmosphere is paper plates and sweatpants. So it's a big, big on the food, easy. On the other tradition, there's always football on in the background, not overpowering, just nice and quiet, something to watch and then engage with our family. And I do something that I've done for probably 20 years now, so I'm a big cook. I love to do it in police work. It's never finished, right. So I find it satisfying to have a plan, get all the stuff, execute and then be done.
Speaker 3:It could be great, it could be terrible, and a lot of people do that in our line of work. They like to detach from here and they'll do it with woodworking or construction. I am awful at all that stuff, but I love to cook and you can use the same thing. So a plan, ingredients, the fun of putting it together and then hopefully it comes out good, but it's going to come out one way or the other. So I love doing the stuffing, the turkey. So I love doing the stuffing, the turkey, the mashed potatoes, and do all of it directly from scratch. What I love to do for a leftover now, this is my unique thing. I call it the pilgrim sub and there's a lot of versions of it now in Publix.
Speaker 3:I think Wawa has one. I've been doing it for years. So you take a sub roll when you're done and all of the leftovers are out and I'll slather some cranberry sauce on the bread as your base. That's like your, your condiment. Then I layer it with turkey stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy over the top, close the sub. You're one. You want to eat it right now. Don't wrap it in foil tight, put it in the fridge tomorrow when you're either putting up your tree or fighting your family to not do that yet. Preheat the oven 350, open the foil a little bit, put it in, let the sub roll get just crispy, take it out, and that was worth all the effort the day before.
Speaker 2:Wow, chief, I had no idea you could cook. That sounds amazing. Is this where we start planning our office potluck for?
Speaker 1:Christmas You're going to bring a pilgrim sub for everyone. Great, that's awesome, and I know you were kind of telling me a little bit about this before. There are two secrets. The one is that you put it in the fridge and you let it sit overnight, and that kind of lets it all meld together.
Speaker 3:But the other secret is that you don't want like a fancy sub role, right? No, you don't. You don't want like a fancy sub roll, right? No, you don't. I've made all of the different mistakes in learning the artisan roll, or the real public sub roll, the hearty one. It gets too crispy and you'll get the soft in the middle and then two, it's just not the right mix. The key is to get the bread aisle mass-produced bag of sub rolls like the D'Italiano one, the soft, very soft, load it up, put it in something about that overnight magic and then it takes the oven. The crispiness, just perfect. You don't want to cut yourself eating the bread. It's just got enough structure to hold it together and doesn't overpower the real star of the show, which is every little component. And you can do different things too. You can put some sweet potatoes on it, you can get fun, get creative with it, but it is dynamite.
Speaker 1:So I know what you're having for lunch today.
Speaker 3:Yes, as soon as we're done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't hungry before, but now I feel like maybe we should go eat.
Speaker 1:Literally sounds fabulous.
Speaker 2:I hope everybody had an awesome Thanksgiving and I hope that everyone also behaves on Black Friday. That's really important, for sure. No theft or anything like that. Do you guys? Black Friday shop.
Speaker 3:I don't shop, but used to, and we've evolved into cyber. I personally keep Amazon in business.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, oh yeah, the online's where it's at. I don't have the energy especially after a big meal like Thanksgiving to go to the stores, so I'm with you there. Yeah, absolutely All right. Thank you. We hope you had a wonderful holiday and we'll see you next time.
