Thanksgiving

It was an angela thing and it all started when she sent me a link along with a two word email that said “interesting, huh?”. 

My god, so much has happened since then.

The birds have long been roasted to a golden hue and feasted upon while the carcass has been turned into a rich stock tucked away in my freezer.  But at the risk of whatever reputation I might have it is both my pleasure and responsibility to present to you the saga of an inside-out very misunderstood version of the much more familiar and accepted turducken - the ducurkey.  Or as we like to call it, The Space Shuttle Turkey.

Let me continue on by reminding you that I’m an excitable kinda gal.  It doesn’t take much to get me up and on a bandwagon and so I was all about the space shuttle turkey.  Because why can’t the Thanksgiving turkey have a little fun?

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I’m grateful for many things at Thanksgiving– family, friends, health, light traffic on the 405…all the usual suspects.  But as the person who hosts that gathering year after year, I am also grateful for this technique for a perfect dry-brine roast turkey that makes my old wet-brine birds seem spongy, bland and far too much work by comparison.

The method was developed by one of my favorite San Francisco chefs, Judy Rodgers. In her 2002 The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Rodgers goes into great detail on why salting meats and poultry days ahead of the actual cooking promotes juiciness, texture and enhances flavor…flying in the face of what, until then, had been the conventional wisdom that the salting of meats should be done only at the last minute. Per her instruction, I tried it with dozens of dishes–from chickens to chops to pot roasts–and, in every instance, the technique worked beautifully.  But it never occurred to me to use it on the all important Thanksgiving turkey until The Los Angeles Times’ Russ Parson, one of my favorite food writers, declared it the definitive way to beautify the bird. And, boy, was Russ right.

Ever since Jeff and I moved to Southern California seven years ago, my parents have flown from Rhode Island to celebrate Thanksgiving with us.

Each year about a week before they leave, Mom calls and asks,"Do you want us to bring anything? Bread from Buono's? What about some soppressata from Venda's?" After taking down our requests, she invariably asks me one question: "Is Jeff going to make those rosemary nuts this year?"

I make the turkey, the stuffing, the cranberry relish, the vegetables and all the desserts. But what do my parents want to know? If Jeff is making the rosemary nuts.

These Sweet and Spicy Rosemary Nuts have become such an integral part of our celebration that none of us can imagine Thanksgiving Day without them. Jeff makes them early in the morning, enticing us with the aromas of earthy rosemary and sweet honey.  We traditionally serve them with drinks before dinner. When there's about half a bowl left, we take turns, saying, "Put them away. I've had enough."

I love cranberries. I do. I love Ocean Spray whole cranberry cranberry sauce. It has to be whole berry and I’m addicted to it. I can’t even serve a roast chicken without cranberry sauce. We were once out of cranberry sauce (which I didn’t realize) as I put the chicken on the table and I started crying. Literally.

Alan was so annoyed at me he stormed out and bought ten cans of whole berry cranberry sauce and we had a very pleasant dinner. The roast chicken was very good by the way. But it just feels naked to me without the “sauce” and gravy might do the trick but it’s fattening and bad for you and over-indulgent on a Wednesday night.

On Thanksgiving, I like to take two to three cans of Ocean Spray, put them in a decorative mold (like you make a bundt cake in) but I have one that’s in the shape of a rose, put it in the fridge for three hours and then carefully place a plate over it, hit the bottom of the pan and serve it on the plate and pretend I made it myself.

My friend Carol Caldwell once made a spiced up cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving that we thought was pretty great. She has no recollection of this. But I do. What I remember is that it had jalapenos in it, a kind of zingy (or California) addition and some kind of alcohol (which may be why she doesn’t remember it). I think it was bourbon. She thinks it was Vodka. I’m pretty sure I’m right. And for sure, a little bit of grated orange rind for flavor.