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.”
As most of you know by now, I am still in mourning over the 
Empanada Boy and I spent Thanksgiving in Cannon Beach with my grandma and immediate family and his parents, sister and brother-in-law. It was just the ten of us through most of the visit, but the Thanksgiving dinner at our family beach house was attended by nearly 30 of our closest friends and family. Needless to say, one turkey would not be enough. Mango Mama made a 20-lb bird using her traditional preparation (courtesy of Martha Stewart), which involves wrapping the bird in a butter-and-white wine-soaked cheesecloth. Another friend made a slightly smaller organic bird. These would have been enough to feed us all, but Daddy Salmon provided another interesting twist this year. About a week before Thanksgiving, he took his traditional longbow hunting in Lebanon, Oregon. He came back with the first bow-caught food of his archery career: a wild turkey.
The bird looks big in the above photo, but once Daddy Salmon had plucked its feathers it shrunk down to a sinuous 10 lbs. Daddy Salmon got up early on Thanksgiving day to brine the turkey in garlic, salt and a variety of herbs. After about eight hours of brining, I pulled it out and placed it in the roasting pan. The wild turkey didn’t get nice and browned like its supermarket cousins during the 2-3/4 hours of roasting. Each time I checked in on it, I was surprised to see the taught, greyish-brownish skin looking just as alien as ever. When I finally pulled it out, I noticed a purple-colored area on the top of the breast. This likely came from the blood vessels broken by the pierce of Daddy Salmon’s arrow.
This photo of the wild turkey waiting to be carved illustrates where the arrow hit. The meat was distributed to guests separately from the farm-raised turkeys to those interested in trying their free-ranging relative. The white meat turned out to be very tender, but it was far milder than the familiar store-bought birds. Daddy Salmon found whole acorns in its gullet, so we can only assume that this is part of what gave the meat its flavor. The dark meat was tough and very muscular, more like red meat than poultry. It was also difficult to get much dark meat off the bone. Daddy Salmon reminded us that there was less meat and more muscle on the wings and the thighs because wild turkeys actually fly. 
Empanada Boy and I returned from a trip to Portland yesterday at a new stage in our relationship. While we were out on a walk in Cannon Beach last week, he asked me to marry him. I was completely surprised and a bit scared by the notion, but the thought of sharing my future trials, achievements, travels and meals with anyone else just doesn’t seem right. In short, I accepted his proposal with the condition that we would wait a couple of years before actually going through the ceremony. 
Empanada Boy and I are in Portland visiting our respective family members and getting ready to celebrate Passover. After a delicious, but pricey, lunch on Friday at 
That place was the 
What better to pair with a beer than a burger? That’s exactly what Mango Mama was thinking was she ordered Ken’s Big Boy, a truly well-made burger, topped with grilled onions, mushrooms and Pepperjack cheese. This was a simple, yet decadent option, served on a plump Kaiser roll. It proved the already well-established point that mastery of the classics is a sign of greatness. The burger comes with a choice of chips or pea salad, and Mango Mama chose the later. The salad is a relatively light mixture of green peas, onions, bleu cheese and water chestnuts. It is a perfect side dish for a heavy meal, virtually guaranteeing that you can’t leave feeling as uncomfortably full as you would with a side of fries.
EB and I took burgers to a new level by ordering the oyster burger, made with a tender fried oyster from nearby Willapa Bay breaded in panko and grilled. It was delicious, flavorful and filling, despite being much smaller than the burger. EB and I were in heaven after taking our first bites because we could taste the ocean in those oysters, making them into symbols of that time and place.
My plane from O’Hare landed in Portland at 10:40 am on Thanksgiving morning. I found the car (actually the big white truck we use to transport things to our family motel) that my mom and sister had left at the airport for me and drove straight to Cannon Beach. 
On the way home from the beach on Sunday, Daddy Salmon, Flava Flav and I stopped off at the vaunted Northwest fast food chain, 
The sweet potato fries come in a large cup and are enough to make a lunch all on their own. They are earthy and deep in flavor with only very light oil and the perfect amount of salt. The larger ones are rich and filling, and the smaller are delightfully crispy. There is no need for ketchup or anything else on these fries. If anything, I might try mustard or vinegar to offset their sweetness. Flava Flav and I shared one order. It was the perfect snack. 
When we did sit down, about 20 minutes later, we ordered a couple bottles of a nice Rioja ($36 a piece). The wine prices here are a little more expensive than the menu, with most prices falling in the $30-$38 a bottle range. All entrees are priced at or below $12. 
I tried some of Flava’s mac and cheese and some of Sushi Sister’s meatloaf, neither of which was very inspiring. Both the meatloaf and polenta cake on Sushi Sister’s plate were oddly tiny portions. I think my favorite of the other entrees was the flat-iron steak, which Mango Mama and Croque Monsieur ordered. Mango Mama’s was a nice, tender medium rare. She got a side of crispy fries and some tasty greens. It was fried chicken night, but all the fried chicken was at the other end of the table, so I never tried a bite. Mango Mama said it was just so-so.
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