turkey

An Armchair Guide to How to Cook a Turkey

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Tom
As I mentioned before, I’m not cooking this Thanksgiving. Though I get the day off, that doesn’t mean I get to relax completely. In the last week I’ve made two new recipes—one a faithful rendition of Marcella Hazan’s Red Clam Sauce and the other a seat-of-the-pants attempt to recreate the kale, pine nut, and parmesan salad I had the other day at Prune.

The clam sauce brought up strange memories, and the kale salad inspired Santa Maria to such a degree that she declared she could fly. I’ll give full details on these dishes soon. In the meantime, though, I’ll try to answer the question everyone seems to be asking me: how do you cook a turkey?  

I have no practical knowledge of such matters, but a lack of experience has never deterred me in the past (I am a parent, after all), and I’ll provide three suggestions.

 

 

  • My favorite recent article about Thanksgiving turkeys ran a few days ago in the New York Times. Ariel Kaminer went to a Halal slaughterhouse in Queens and slit the throat of a Bourbon Red Turkey, which she then took home to cook. Hart Perry, the farmer who bred the bird, suggested doing nothing more than putting it in the oven with a bit of salt and pepper. “Against the advice of two chefs, I did as he said,” Kaminer wrote, “setting the oven to 350 degrees; it was the most flavorful turkey I had ever had.”

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, or How to Grill a Turkey

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442px-Ganesha_Basohli_miniature_circa_1730_Dubost_p73

The other day, I told a friend at work that my eighty-six-year-old mother in-law had fallen in our apartment and shattered her shoulder. “Damn,” he said, presumably thinking of my year of broken real-estate deals and our seemingly endless housing search, “what did you do to bring all this on yourself?”

The only answer I have—that in a past life I was a medieval lord who took too great an advantage of droit de seigneur—isn’t very helpful. But the fates haven’t been completely unkind, and things are looking up.

My mother-in-law had a successful operation, and has recovered to the extent that I’ve been able to tease her about playing table tennis when I see her at Christmas and Santa Maria has been able to joke about it (“it is not humorous that she fractured her humerus!”). We’ve found an apartment we adore, and (after much drama) have a seemingly ironclad deal to move in a few months (more about that later, I’m sure). And a few weeks ago, GOOP picked up on this site, and brought it lots of new readers. Welcome if you are one of them!

Being featured on GOOP is very exciting, and I’m delighted and grateful to have been include in such fine company. I’ve previously mentioned some of the sites included in the GOOP roundup, and I’ve been enjoying the others, too: Orangette, David Lebovitz, What Katie Ate, Canelle et Vanille, Oh Joy Eats, and Tastespotting.

The GOOP mention has led to fun developments: my favorite is a French translation of my blog: Restez à papa Cuisinière, the title of which translates, according to a French-speaking friend of mine, as “an imperative: “Stay at Dad Stove”—as if there were such a thing as a “Dad Stove” and someone were being ordered to stay at it.”

I’ve also been spending much more time on the web, looking at food sites, and one my most recent finds, Dad Cooks Dinner, is run by a kindred spirit in Ohio, Mike Vrobel. A self-described geek, he is truly dedicated, cooking nine meals out of every ten, according to his count, and doing most of those over an open fire. His blog, subtitled “Weeknight, Grilling, and Rotisserie Recipes From a Dad who Cooks Dinner Every Night,” is full of great ideas and he clearly explains obscure techniques with neat little videos.

Next time I find myself in front of a grill, I’ll be sure to turn to him. In the meantime, he has an interesting approach to making the Thanksgiving turkey: on the grill, of course. Here’s his video on how to truss the bird for the Rotisserie: