Even though I shipped my cooking gear here to New York before arriving in September, things have been so busy and crazy it’s been difficult to find time behind the stove. When I get back from the west coast leg of my book tour (I leave tomorrow!) I have a lot of cooking I want to do; in the meantime, I’ve been checking many places off my New York “must eat” list. Here’s one of the best.
Finally, there’s the turkey itself. For years my mom tried to convince me to make just a turkey breast for the Thanksgivings I’d make at home. And for years I refused because I’d never made a whole turkey before and wanted to document that experience for the blog.
But because I was cooking a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving for just Craig and his aunt and uncle on Saturday, I knew a whole turkey didn’t make sense. And so it was that I bought a 2 1/4 pound turkey breast at Gelson’s already tied up and everything.
It’s that time of year again. First comes the “What To Do With Leftover Candy?” and the blood-tinted Halloween punch; then we’re in turkey month—just look at those glossies at your supermarket checkout—and, faster than you can say “hot buttered rum,” there’ll be the Bûche de Noëls, the potato latkes, and glasses of champagne to ring in the New Year.
Most mainstream food outlets—from blogs to magazines to cooking shows on T.V.—will follow the formula with precision. They’ve been plotting this since summer, when holiday strategy meetings took place: “What can we do this year that we didn’t do 50 times already?”
Yesterday morning I Tweeted the following Tweet: “Should I get a medal for not having any Thanksgiving content on my blog (minus the banner?) Or should I cave and make some turkey & pie?”
Several followers felt I deserved a medal (“Don’t cave! It’s a welcome respite from the ‘holiday spirit,’” wrote @laujk; “Please no Thanksgiving stuff. I haven’t bought a food magazine all month. Super boring. (especially for us Canadians,” wrote @emmawaverman.”) Ultimately, though, enough people DID want Thanksgiving content (“Embrace the festivities,” wrote @5_minutespeace; “Cave–it’s fun to see everyone’s take/ideas,” wrote @FreshTartSteph) that I decided to do a round-up of all the recipes from my blog’s archives that’d be perfect at your Thanksgiving table.
Here’s an appropriate video for those of you preparing to feast tomorrow; it’s a montage of scenes from great food movies (“Big Night,” “Like Water For Chocolate,” “Goodfellas,” etc) created by Matt Zoller Seitz:
That Thanksgiving scene from “Avalon” fueled a running punchline in my family; every Thanksgiving my dad would say, in a thick Yiddish accent, “You cut the toikey?” My mom would say it too. And thus I hope you all have fun cutting your toikeys tomorrow.
Floating Away — DeNiro did it for "Raging Bull," and now I've done it for this month's banner. That's right, check out the new plus-sized me floating up there in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Once again, kudos to Lindy Groening for another stellar illustration, and to Justin for puffing the air into all those balloons.
[Hey, this is Adam The Amateur Gourmet and it's official: I am back from Barcelona, Spain and this is our very last guest post. Last, but certainly not least. My friend John Kazlauskas, who you may remember from our trip to Paris or his trips to Iceland and Peru or his nephew Nico, now lives in L.A. and works as a writer's assistant on ABC's Brothers and Sisters. Are you a fan of that show? Well you're really going to love this post--you'll get to see what the writers eat behind the scenes. Ok, John, this is the last one so make it good...take it away!]
Welcome to the Writer’s Kitchen at ABC’s Brothers & Sisters! In the fast-paced, cut-throat world of primetime television our writer’s kitchen offers security, it offers hope and it offers – at any given moment – more than five pounds of sliced turkey.
Either you’re prepping your turkeys or you’re prepping your stomachs or you’re prepping your turkey stomachs (Thanksgiving offal!), but no matter what you’re prepping: I wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t forget to share your Thanksgiving pictures in The A.G. Photo Pool. Even if you don’t, though, happy cooking and, more importantly: happy eating.
[Note: The turkey you see above is the turkey I cooked last year and it was a huge hit. The secrets? I brined it in apple cider and cooked at at a very low 275. For all the info, click here. It's not too late to brine!]
