Joy Preserved

I've just shipped off the annual Season's Eating packages that my friends so anxiously await. Although they have more than everything, a little jam and some blueberry chutney, a jar of pickled asparagus, dried herbs, a small tin of chili roasted pumpkin seeds, a jar of honest to Maine maple syrup and some cookies seem to unleash joy to their world. So this is, at least for me, the greatest annual moment of glory for our farmers' markets.

Those packages are the soul satisfying triumph of shopping well done. And my friends get it that I am sharing the love: the love farmers have for their work and the love I have for their food. You just can't overdo caring in today's world. So give homemade food gifts if you can. At this dark time of year, the deep fruit flavor of honest jam, the pungent zing of blueberry chutney, the heat of chili or cinnamon spice brighten a body and soul. And look it this way too: you can frustrate yourself squeezing into crowded parking areas and mobbed malls trying to buy something probably made in China that you imagine somebody here really needs or you can stay home and have some family fun in the kitchen making something you know will be eaten with appreciation--for your thoughtful effort if nothing else.


I like to throw in a small non edible gift from time to time, usually something found at the markets' handicraft stalls--a clever potholder, a handwoven basket, a unique dried flower arrangement. One year it was sheepskin hats. This year, I've been diverted because I couldn't help myself. My gotta have gift is the shoulder strap tote bag for sale at the Museum Shop of the Maine Historical Society on Congress Street in Portland. This perfect shopping bag is emblazoned with the U.S. Food Administration's 1917 (read that: during World War I) words to the wise:
FOOD
1-buy it with thought
2-cook it with care
3-use less wheat & meat
4-buy local foods
5-serve just enough
6-use what's left
DON'T WASTE IT

A big thank you to whoever preserved those guidelines! Don't they make the timeliest gift now, nearly 100 years after they were issued?

My cookies, by the way, are ginger filled, because cinnamon, cloves and ginger are the spices known to raise the temperature of the body--a favor in these chilly times. That's why they show up in mulled cider and so many holiday baked goods. If perchance you found cornmeal at a farmers' market and still have some, consider making a cornmeal pound cake or cornmeal, lemon butter cookies. These are delicious without being cloying sweet. Italian baking books can guide you.

If friends are coming over, gift them with a festive, elegant but easy to prepare feast of warm smoked chicken (now at markets) with wild rice. Add pecans and cranberries (dried or fresh) to the rice, and add butternut squash mashed with cardamom and a bit of coconut cream to the plate. Or try making a smoked chicken salad (celery, scallions, currants, cranberries, tarragon) and serving it in a warm, colorful bowl: a hollowed acorn squash that was basted with maple syrup before it was baked. If you're thinking turkey again, remember the heritage ones, the real deal turkeys available at winter markets. Narragansett is the original, and the most popular now. You might also find Bourbon Red, Spanish black or Standard Bronze.

Ben Franklin lobbied for the wild turkey to be America's national bird, finding it more appropriate than the bald eagle. The eagle, Franklin wrote to his daughter, "is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.... He watches the labor of the fishing hawk (ospreys to us); and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young one, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him." But the turkey, Franklin went on, shared its food, and "though a little vain and silly, is a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on."

And if you haven't had enough apple crisp or pie or even crisp apples, hurry to the winter markets. There's where you'll find the tastiest apples available, and for good reason. A recent article in The New Yorker (November 21, 2012) confirms that when big ag supersizes the harvest to maximize profits, it focuses exclusively on apples that don't bruise when mechanically harvested, sorted and shipped; picks apples long before they ripen to keep a continual supply flowing to supermarkets and despite the damage to taste components, breed for mutations of shiny red because that's how they think we all think of apples. Green or yellow won't tempt us. And quality is not allowed to interfere with quantity in the supply chain. That's why the University of Minnesota wanted to protect its newly patented consumer hit, the SweeTango apple. "When you sell the apples at your farm stand," the head of its fruit breeding program explained: " people know who grew them. But when you sell them to a grocery store, you the grower are anonymous, as far as the consumer is concerned, and that's where quality issues creep in."

Who wants to get quality issues for Christmas?

Talking Turkey

Gobble gobble day is almost here and newspaper columns are covered in turkey cooking coverage. My favorite is the straight shooting curmudgeon who insists turkey was never a tasty bird and thousands of tries at making it one just prove it over and over. You've got to endlessly baste it--indeed there's even a kitchen gadget known as a turkey baster, or brine it--that turns it into an old salt--or blast it in a deep fryer that's downright dangerous.

The big breasted supermarket turkey is an industrial marvel that no amount of industrious kitchen effort can turn into good homecooked food. If you have to get yours from a chain store, at least think small. It works out much better to have, say, two 10-12 lb specimens than one 22 lb big bird. For one thing, you get more drumsticks to go around. The white meat will definitely be juicier. And you won't have to stay up all night baking and basting. Small turkeys are good to carve in just under four hours. I always used to put mine in the ovens just as Santa made his way into Herald Square, closing Macy's big parade and turned the ovens off just as guests were piling in between 4 and 5.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of two turkeys is two tastes. You can make each one a different way, which will jazz up the meal by eliminating those foregone conclusions that make it so boring. Two turkeys means two different stuffings too. I used to alternate between three. The one for the traditional parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme turkey was braised vegetables (onion, leek, eggplant, green pepper, mushrooms, spinach or chard, parsley and peas) mixed with pine nuts and Jasmine rice cooked in chicken broth. This is the perfect leftover: eat it as a side dish, a main dish (think risotto) or pour on chicken broth and turn it into soup. The stuffing for the curried turkey was roasted pecans and pistachios with dried fruits (prunes, apricots, cranberries, currants, figs, cherries) stewed with cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and orange zest. This turkey got a maple syrup glaze at the end (paint maple syrup on it when you take it out of the oven and it will shine). Both of these turkeys need to be basted with chicken or turkey broth.

The surprise big hit, the one everybody started to ask for every year, was the cornbread stuffing with onions, roasted poblano pepper, kidney and black beans (from the can), corn kernels, pimentos, pepitas and chili powder. This is because it was inside my barbeque turkey. I got so bored with tradition and so frustrated by the eh quality of my efforts, that one year I said: what the hell, and slathered the turkey in my own barbeque sauce. The night before, I smeared that under some of the breast skin, in both cavities and all over the bird. I smeared on more when I put the turkey in the oven at 475 degrees to get it sizzling, lowered the heat to 400 for two hours and basted alternately with chicken broth and more barbeque sauce, then lowered the heat to 300 until that turkey almost dissolved into pulled turkey. It was so finger licking luscious, people still ask me how to make it. ?? I always improvised that sauce, but its basics were garlic, fresh minced ginger root, maple syrup, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Balsamic vinegar, a dab of Asian chili sauce (the bottle with the rooster on it will do), a spritz of Tamari, chili powder, Chinese black bean garlic sauce (a key ingredient and it comes in a jar), salt and oregano.

I also had a friend who made a memorably delicious turkey by stuffing it with baby vegetables including potatoes and leaving it covered on the actual barbeque grill for several hours. If I did that, I'd probably baste it with a mix of soy sauce (or Tamari) and olive oil.

Heritage turkeys will be much smaller and the white meat not exactly white. The folks who produce these game birds like to say you only need to baste with a combination of butter and maple syrup or just one of them. Also you don't have to cook them as long or at forced high heat to kill off the bacteria and germs endemic to those pitiful industrial turkeys. If you sense they're going to taste "gamey", I'd suggest squirting fresh lime juice on them the night before. Lime juice is a key ingredient in chicken tandoori cooking and brighter than lemon.

Leftovers are of course the best part of Thanksgiving dinner, and the worst kept secret in America is that all your guests have already cooked their own turkey because while everybody complains about the Thanksgiving Day meal, nobody wants to miss out on the weekend of leftovers. So they won't be taking your bird home. It's all yours. Don't leave any stuffing in it overnight. Freeze what meat you will, and don't forget on Sunday to put the carcass in a stockpot with an onion, clove, celery and water to get yourself the underpinnings of good turkey noodle soup. You can freeze that too and give thanks in January that you made all this effort now.