The Perfect Turkey (Or Why You Should Never Knock Martha)
My mom has been making the same Thanksgiving turkey recipe since I was in middle school. It isn’t a family recipe that was handed down through the generations. Neither of my grandmothers have ever been good cooks, and I doubt that either ever took much pride in the annual roasting of the bird. But in a way, my grandma, Trader Joanna, is responsible for introducing the recipe into the annals of our family tradition. It all began one Thanksgiving morning when Trader Joanna and I were sitting on the curved leather couch in the family room of our beach house on the Oregon coast. We had been watching the Macy’s parade on TV. After the last float went by, Trader Joanna scanned the channels, stopping when she reached the Martha Stewart show. Despite not being a cook, Trader Joanna had always valued the hostess-with-the-mostest skills Martha Stewart imparted. Like Martha, Trader Joanna has also made a name as a savvy businesswoman, although her empire extends roughly to the borders of the town of Cannon Beach (plus a few pocket fiefdoms in Portland).
Trader Joanna and I watched as the perfectly pasteled Martha showed us how to make a turkey that came out evenly browned, moist and flavorful every time. Martha’s trick involves draping the salted, peppered and stuffed bird with a length of cheesecloth that had been plunged into a pot of hot butter and white wine. She then puts the turkey in the oven to roast, opening the door every 30 minutes to paint the cheesecloth with more butter and white wine. On TV, Martha’s turkey emerged from its cheesecloth sheath looking like the cover of a magazine. “That seems like a good recipe,” Trader Joanna said. “We should do it that way.” As everyone in my family has learned over the years, when Trader Joanna says “we,” she almost always means “you”—in this case, my mother. Luckily, Mango Mama is not the type to brine in advance. She bought some cheesecloth and followed Martha’s instructions, producing a bird that exceeded all our expectations.
This year, my mom made Martha’s turkey (second photo) at her Thanksgiving dinner in Cannon Beach, and my aunt, Auntie Pasti and I made it (top photo) for our east coast feast on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I convinced Auntie Pasti to order a heritage turkey from Robinson’s Prime Reserve in Louisville, Kentucky. They were having a 20% off sale on Gilt Groupe (my “gilt-y” pleasure), so I emailed her to see if she was interested. She went for it—all $130 of it. I covered the additional $30 shipping and handling fee that brought the 22 pound just-killed bird to her apartment on the Tuesday before turkey day. Mango Mama, on the other hand, secured her 20-plus pound Butterball for free. The Portland grocery chain, Fred Meyer had a deal where you got a free turkey by purchasing $200 worth of food.
Needless to say, Mango Mama and Auntie Pasti had already spoken on the phone and compared notes about their respective turkeys by the time Empanada Boy and I arrived on the Upper West Side Thursday morning. “I can’t believe I spent so much money,” Auntie Pasti said. Later when I talked to Mango Mama she said: “Free is a good price. I don’t mind a few chemicals in my turkey.” Two sisters on opposite coasts, so alike you can’t tell them apart on the phone, yet still so different.
In addition to preparing our turkey to the letter of Martha’s instructions, Auntie Pasti and I made a delicious green salad with snow peas, beans and lemon zest; a brussels sprout hash; buttery mashed potatoes and cubed sweet potatoes. And before I even arrived, Auntie Pasti made two kinds of cranberry sauce—one a tart relish and the other sweeter with cubes of pear mixed in—and two kinds of stuffing—one with currants and pine nuts and the other packed with smoky Spanish chorizo. Every 30 minutes, a timer went off, and we would drop what we were chopping to open the oven and baste with butter and white wine— she with a baster, and I with a brush.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, closely rivaled by Passover, because I can think of almost nothing I would rather do all day than be in the kitchen making and tasting delicious food and chatting with my mom my aunt, my sister or anyone else who has been put to work. In recent years, Auntie Pasti has done more of the work, and I have been responsible for my traditional task of making the desserts. This year, I made my desserts— a pear tart with Poire Williams glaze and an apple-cranberry pie— the night before and the always resourceful Empanada Boy figured out how to carry them on the subway the next morning so I could help with the bird. It was a treat to see the meal through from start to finish.
The rest of the relatives and guests arrived, and Corn-y Uncle poured us some pre-dinner Champagne. As we toasted to the host and hostess, I thought to myself: “Martha Stewart would be proud.” Indeed, the turkey emerged from the oven about a half hour later, looking perfectly burnished and moist. Cousin Ketchup, the family expert on poultry carving after watching a New York Times instructional video last year, set about his task. I snuck a taste of the dark meat, and I have to say, it was the best turkey I have ever tasted. As Auntie Pasti put it: “It had better be.”
Empanada Boy had a previous stint in New York City, a while before we met. At that time, he was a poor, single, college student working on two degrees and doing his best to fend for himself in the big, bad city. He eventually ended up moving to Park Slope in Brooklyn, but his first apartment was on the Upper West Side. Despite his relative poverty, he was a typical New Yorker and college student in that he rarely cooked for himself. Instead, he quickly identified the cheap, filling and delicious eateries in the immediate vicinity of his apartment. One of them was 
As I’ve already mentioned, one of the most salient features of Alibaba is the restaurant’s tiny footprint. There is just enough room for a table with six seats and space for customers to walk up to the counter to order. Behind that counter, the kitchen seems even smaller. When the weather is warm enough the staff opens the front floor-to-ceiling window out onto the street. But even when it’s nice, the majority of customers gets delivery or take out. We sat down after ordering, and I got a good look at the restaurant’s crowded walls. A tiny sink offers a place to wash hands or fill up a plastic cup. Above it hang Jewish and Israeli posters, reviews from magazines and newspapers and lanterns that look like the were purchased in the shuk in Jerusalem. 
As the guy behind the counter made our falafel, we got to fill up paper containers at the brightly colored salad bar to the right of the front counter. Beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted eggplants, curried carrots and cabbage were among the many delicious looking items to choose from. We filled our containers to the brim and started eating the crisp, fresh and flavorful offerings while we waited for our sandwiches.
It’s hard to imagine it, but Empanada Boy and I have officially been married for more than a year now. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary yesterday with a collaboratively prepared dinner designed to pair well a bottle of 1982 Domaine de la Gaffelière Bordeaux from Saint-Emilion. We got the wine as a wedding present from Mango Mama’s cousin and his wife who have a fantastic cellar in their house in Portland. Last year, a few days before our wedding, Daddy Salmon, on the phone, called to me from the next room: “What year were you born ?” (You would think that a father would remember his own daughter’s birthday, but Daddy Salmon is a bit of an absent-minded professor.) Not knowing who he was talking to, but having a hunch that it might be wedding-gift-related (working in a wine store, as I did, you get a sense for these things), I called back: “1982: a great year for Bordeaux.” 
Indeed, 1982 is still one of the greatest vintages ever recorded in that region. Wines made that year are said to age well and still be drinking nicely. Empanada Boy and I had been eagerly looking forward to opening this bottle since the moment we got it. I decanted the wine to let it air out its 26 years of captivity while we prepared our dinner: hand ground skirt steak burgers, salad and pommes frites cut and fried by Empanda Boy himself. I was responsible for grinding the meat, which gave me a chance to use my new grinder attachment for the Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I cut the meat into cubes and pushed it through the grinder with the plastic plunging tool. I then formed the patties and cooked them until medium-rare on the stovetop. 
Meanwhile, EB was hard at work thinly slicing potatoes and frying them, not once, but two times, in hot vegetable oil. It’s only appropriate in this post about our anniversary meal that I digress momentarily to point out an outstanding (and endearing) feature of EB’s personality. Anyone else who had never made French fries might think, “oh that would be nice” and then proceed to roast some potatoes in the oven or order takeout. Not EB. Once he gets an idea into his head, he cannot be prevented from executing it, usually to great effect. As I glanced over at his elaborate frying operation, I was surprised to see his fries come out of the pot golden and crisp-looking, without a hint of char. He also made a delicious curry dipping mayonnaise with onions and ketchup mixed in for added flavor. Who knew that EB was such a chef?
When we were finished preparing we went up onto the roof of Auntie Pasti and Corn-y Uncle’s building where we were staying as cat-sitters. As we watched the sun go down, we took a sip of the wine. It was smoky and mellow with raspberry flavors and only the slightest hint of tannin left in the finish. Our burgers made an excellent match, although the skirt steak gave them a distinctive funk that you don’t expect in a burger. It wasn’t bad, just different. Anyone who saw our decked out table might have thought we were at a French bistro after one glance at EB’s pommes frites, wrapped in paper cones and tucked into stout glasses. The fries came out crispy with a nice crackling exterior and a soft interior. Some had cooled off a bit too much, but they were about as good as could be accomplished without the use of a deep-fryer.
Thanks to graduate school, I have been bad at actually getting around to writing about the restaurants I visit. Back when Mango Mama and Daddy Salmon were in town— a fantastic, but too-short visit— we went to a number of good places. On Daddy Salmon’s last day in town we met up for brunch with my uncle Chocolate Cake and my aunt Lady Lasagne who came into the city from Long Island. Our meeting place was 
Sarabeth’s is a breezy space with lots of light and a hint of a country home feel. The wait was a fairly manageable half hour— pretty decent for the Upper West Side on a Sunday. Empanada Boy got into the spirit of things right after we sat down, ordering himself a Bloody Mary. The drink was attractively garnished with julienned peppers, onions and pickles. The flavor was well balanced, with a nice kick of vinegary hot sauce, although I prefer my Bloody Marys a little thicker than this one. 
Sarabeth Levine, the mastermind behind the whole operation, is best known for her baked goods. She apparently started out with a bakery business, selling her scones, breads, cookies, cakes and jams. The restaurant came afterward, as another way to display her baking talents. Considering this, I thought it would be worthwhile to try some of the sweeter breakfast options. I ordered the lemon and ricotta pancakes with fresh berries. From the outside, these look like plain old pancakes, but they have lemon zest cooked right into them. This gives them a bright, tangy edge, which is then counteracted by the subtle, rich ricotta. They were so lemony that I thought the syrup had lemon in it too. 
Daddy Salmon and Chocolate Cake had bowls of porridge followed by the pretty “Fat and Fluffy French Toast,” shown above. These were good, but not really any better than the French toast Mango Mama and I make with our leftover challah at home. True to his experimental streak, EB opted for the potato waffles with chicken-apple sausage, apple sauce and sour cream. They were basically latke waffles, but not as good. They lacked the delicious oily, crispiness of latkes, which are basically their best features. I guess that’s what happens when you try to mess with tradition.
Living in a relatively ungentrified part of Harlem has some drawbacks for food lovers. There are no bagels, no espresso bars, no wine stores and almost no sit-down restaurants. But, as Empanada Boy and I found, living here can also have its culinary advantages. These are particularly evident if you live, as we do, within a quick trot of 
Charles’ specialty is the fried chicken (pictured above), which he reportedly cooks in massive cast iron skillets. He seasons the pieces for at least 8 hours, dips them in egg and fries them in soybean oil. The result is some of the lightest, crunchiest fried skin I’ve ever tasted. This delightful shell gives way to moist, flavorful meat that is difficult to stop eating, despite the ever encroaching state of fullness. Just ask EB. He finished his chicken, sweet potatoes and collard greens and then had to go home to lie down. I ordered the barbecue chicken and was entranced by the sweet, slightly spicy sauce coating the tender, smoky meat. Collard greens were salty and rich with ham hock flavor. Similarly seasoned black-eyed peas exploded in my mouth like morsels of candy. I took some of my chicken and sides home for EB’s lunch, and I was still full. Mango Mama’s barbecue pork ribs were falling off the bone and coated in the same sauce. 
The heavenly fried chicken at Charles’ invited comparison with 
Since moving to New York, I’ve had a problem finding good restaurants to visit. I know it seems crazy. New York is the restaurant capital of the world, and there are excellent, inexpensive ethnic spots in every neighborhood in the city. The problem is that I don’t know about them. I have read the New York Times Dining section religiously for years, but most of the places I read about are the Daniels, Per Ses and Del Postos, the lavish, high-end places that I could never afford to visit. The restaurants that aren’t as upscale are usually incredibly popular, making it almost impossible to get a table when we decide we’d like to go out for dinner at the last minute. 
It’s evident at first glance that the best deals on the menu are in the mezze section. These are the stars of Greek cuisine, and they range in price from $6 to $10. One per person is enough for a light meal. Three shared between two people is plenty. Fulfilling our solemn duty to try more things, HR Peanut and I ordered four. One was the tomato-rusk salad (pictured on top), rusks being crunchy crouton-like cubes. This was similar to a traditional Greek salad, with red onion, olives, feta and oregano. The dressing was a simple vinaigrette, but a little milder than the kind served in your average Greek diner. Rusks gave the dish great texture, and the fresh tomato, cucumber and onion flavors melded nicely. Feta took center stage in another mezze dish where the cheese warmed to softness and served with tomatoes, capers, anchovies, peppers and olives. We used triangles of pita bread to the scoop salty, fishy mixture into our mouths. The bottom line with these dishes: simple and traditional done well wins diners every time.
Our next round of dishes were a bit more substantial. One was a plate of perfectly grilled octopus with a nicely blackened exterior and a tender core. It was dressed with lemon and parsley and paired with plump garbanzo beans. Our final dish was sheep’s milk ravioli with brown butter and sage. I have loved the combination of brown butter and sage since I first tried the gnocchi at A Tavola in Chicago. After all, what’s not to like about toasty brown butter and lightly crisped and salted sage? The ravioli themselves were also tasty, with al dente casings that enclosed a mild, but elegant cheese. The only downside to this dish was the crispy fried onion pieces that had been scattered on top. HR Peanut and I both agreed that these took the dish down a notch, evoking sports bar onion rings, rather than the rugged hills of Greece. 
My sublet in New York wasn’t ready to move into until yesterday, so I’ve been staying with the supremely generous Aunti Pasti and Corn-y Uncle. Their apartment on the Upper West Side is a pretty luxurious place to stay. It’s also conveniently located near the 96th street subway station, within a few stops of Columbia. And next to that subway station is one of the best breakfast options in the city: 
On the mornings before my 8:30 am class, the Tamale (Spanish: tamal, Nahuatl: tamalli) Lady has been a mainstay. An Ecuadorian woman with a talent for cooking and an entrepreneurial spirit, the Tamale Lady and her male assistant— who some say is her son— set up with a cooler near the 96th and 93th street subway entrances. When someone walks up to one of the coolers, their custodians open them to reveal a wealth of homemade tamales. These sell for a mere $1.50 each. The first one I tried (pictured here) was made with chicken and a spicy, fresh salsa verde. Wrapped tightly in its husk and a sheet of aluminum foil, the tamale stayed warm and moist until after my two-hour accounting class came to a close. The firm, slightly sweet masa was a pleasure to eat. My second tamale of the week was mixed with the chewy, stringy melting cheese and spicy blend of green and red chilies gave the tamale extra kick and texture. Another breakfast of champions.
Being in the tamale mood, I decided to try another version at the Rhinebeck Farmer’s Market when I was visiting the Hudson River Valley town with Auntie Pasti over the weekend. We picked out the chicken and tomatillo combo and paid a full $4 for the privilege. “This had better be $2.50 better than the Tamale Lady’s,” I said. In fact, it was smaller and lacked the pleasantly toothsome density of the Tamale Lady’s creations. The chicken was fine, but we couldn’t detect any evidence of tomatillos. These may have been made with organic chicken, but I would take the delicious lard-filled authenticity of the Tamale Lady’s products any day.
I’ve been in New York since the middle of last week, enjoying the sites and staying with Auntie Pasti and Corn-y Uncle on the Upper West Side. Empanada Boy was with me until early this morning when he left to go back to Chicago for work. I’m staying for two more weeks to take care of my cousin Momotaro while his parents are in Japan. EB and I had a great few days, visiting all of his favorite haunts from his New York days. We went to his old apartment in Park Slope and out to Coney Island (to be featured in another post soon). But there was one place on the Upper West Side that EB had been craving: 
Gray’s Papaya is a New York City standard. It’s open 24 hours a day, year-round. It serves a few other food items, but it’s mostly known for its hot dogs. These thin little numbers are all-beef and come with grilled onions and sauerkraut. Unlike Chicago dogs, these are traditionally eaten with ketchup and mustard. Gray’s also serves a variety of fruit drinks, including the namesake papaya, orange, grape, piña colada, coconut “champagne” and banana daquiri. The classic order, the Recession Special, includes two hot dogs and drink. EB ordered one with a papaya drink. I had a single dog. The papaya drink was fresh and fruity. The hot dogs had great snap to them, with surprisingly good quality meat. The grilled onions are blended with some kind of red sauce that EB and I had trouble defining. All we knew was that we liked what we tasted. 
Beyond the simple fare offered here, watching the guys at the counter can provide tons of great entertainment. After years of doing nothing else, these guys know how to make a hot dog. There is one guy who just stands at the cooking station, rotating the dogs and maintaining a substantial number on the back burner at all times. There is another guy in charge of condiments and another at the cash register. Above them are signs with messages like “Best Damn Frankfruter You’ll Ever Eat” and “Gray’s Famous Papaya is Better Than Dom Perignon.”
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