Turkeys Travel Too

I had planned on writing to you yesterday, but on the way to my computer I fell into a turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes with toasted marshmallows coma, stretched out on the floor in front of my parent's fireplace, and fell asleep.

I've finally shaken my turkey stupor.  But I'm not quite finished with the turkey talk yet.  Now, now, before you turn around and run for fear of overdosing on any more Thanksgiving food let me set your groaning stomachs at ease; no turkey recipes, I promise.  I know the day has come and gone but there is something I have to share with you before we truly call it a day.

This year I stumbled upon something special.  An extraordinary turkey.  A bird with a story.

Before the last Thursday of every year's November, we travel from our corners, all with the same destination: tables holding pounds of golden, crispy turkey.  We come from Brooklyn, the west coast, just around the corner...all for the bird.  But what about that bird?  It travels too.  All years before this I'd say our turkey came from the grocery store.  Before the store? Hmm.  Maybe I'd rather not know.

This year it was different.  My turkey came from Kansas.  It came from The Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch.  It was farmed by Frank Reese Jr.  Frank Reese Jr. has a mustache.  This year I'm all in the know just from reading the package of my Heritage Turkey.

Heritage turkeys are ancestors of the industrial, Broad-breasted White turkey we find in our store coolers today.  They can have a lineage as far stretching as 150 years back, and are raised on small farms in the heartland of the U.S.  Domestic breeds, largely in danger of extinction as industrial farms pack chain groceries with heavy, antibiotic rich turkeys, to save the Heritage breeds farmer's would tell you we need to eat them.

For those in the east and the west, the north and the south, wondering...how?  Heritage Foods USA.  A business created by Patrick Martins, the founder of Slow Foods USA, Heritage Foods provides consumers with the Heritage breeds of turkey that need your ovens and gravy to stay alive.  A connection between the small farmers and your holiday company, with a Heritage bird you are assured a vegetarian fed, free range turkey.  A happy bird.  You'll know where it came from, who raised it.

And I can tell you, you'll know it will taste delicious.  Richer, full of flavor, and so mouthwateringly moist...

Best of all, it doesn't stop at turkey.  You're full of turkey, I know.  Heritage Foods USA also has pork, beef, lamb.  Charcuterie.  Even fruit preserves and snacks.  All from regional producers (like Frank Jr.) who celebrate honest American traditions of farming and food production.  Some have mustaches, some don't.

During a time when we travel to say thanks to our favorite people, I couldn't help but feel thankful for the traveling turkeys, that there are still healthy birds and people to plan their trips to our table.

I know you can't wait for Chinese take-out night.  Pizza.  Anything but more turkey (thank you for allowing me a few, possibly gratuitous post-Thanksgiving turkey photos!)  I just couldn't let pass the opportunity to share with you my discovery in hopes it will excite you too.

And remember, your Christmas goose is just around the corner, your Hanukkah brisket not far behind...

Wishful Whiskeying: Part III, a conclusion and a cocktail

The past four days here in Brooklyn have been cold.  Really cold.  Mittens and a hat and a scarf and you're still shivery cold.  The consistency of four days in a row, I fear, means winter is close by.  And that, my friends, means it's about time to finish up that fall whiskey.

Taking a taste on the fourth day of infusing it was agreed upon that the flavor was just right.  The number of days had created a taste that was new and yet still with the definable feel and personality of straight bourbon.  After all the pears and nuts and cinnamon sticks, was I finally headed towards the title of whiskey girl extraordinaire?

Before the clock struck cocktail hour there remained one final step.  Time to strain.  To do this we gathered a large rubber band, scissors and a few pieces of cheese cloth.  

Folding the cheesecloth, creating layers to make a tight filter, we rubber banded the cloth over the jar lid and simply poured it from jar to spouted cup.

Warning: to those of you who look eagerly at the nutty mix of whiskey soaked spiced pears remaining at the bottom of the infusing jar...do not eat them.  Do not do it.  Yes, it was hard to throw away those remaining goodies, but thinking surely there was something that could be done with them I bit into a pear to knockout alcoholic, squish squashy results.  The pears have done their work.  Let them go.

And let yourself raise a glass!  Pouring the bourbon into a clean bottle it was like positioning a trophy as I arranged it on a shelf in the kitchen.  Admiring the amber mix a thought crossed my mind: it's wonderfully warming to take serious time creating something meant to be slowly savored.

And after waiting and wondering and wishing, how wonderful and warming is the first taste of the highly anticipated?  With the wind whipping at the kitchen windows all the shivers now were only in excitement of the first sip.

Spicy, subtly sweet, toasty and tingling.  I am a whisky girl for this.

I'm also still the pre-bourbon Kaitlin.  I like rosy drinks.  I haven't bought a red dress and while I am pleased with the fall harvest treat I'm not ready for a glass on the rocks.  But the possibilities only start on ice.  Inspired by the chilly weather and turkeys to be, Russ and I evolved the fall harvest bourbon into a crowd pleasing, company keeping holiday cocktail: hot-buttered cider bourbon, or what we like to call a "Baked Apple".

Straight, sweetened, dressed up or dressed in slippers, I hope you find just the way to make your bourbon your own.  And that your bourbon finds you a little warmth in your week.

Baked Apple

hot-buttered fall harvest bourbon with cider

1/2 T butter

2 t brown sugar

3 oz (just less than half a cup) fall harvest bourbon

6 oz (3/4 of a cup) apple cider

1.  Place butter, brown sugar and bourbon in a mug.

2.  Heat cider until hot enough to melt butter.

3.  Pour hot cider into the mug, whisking until sugar has dissolved and butter has melted.

4.  Garnish with a cinnamon stick and serve hot.

Yield

one serving

Wholly Pumpkin

In between all this talk of strong whiskey I feel the need for something wholesome.  Namely, pie.  Pumpkin pie.  It is the season after all, and if we are really being honest, when is there a wrong time for pie?

I have many pie ambitions.  I aspire to shape flawlessly crimped crusts.  I will find the perfect recipe for both flaky and mealy dough (I happen to prefer a crumbly crust!)  Among my many pie dreams is nestled a shamefully simple wish: to make a pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin.  How this has yet to be, I often ask ask myself.  And while there will always be a place in my stomach for mom's Libby's canned pumpkin pie, I recently decided it was time to get back to basics and slice into a real, big, orange pumpkin.

Full of that enthusiasm you get from setting out to fulfill a lifelong quest, I pick two picture worthy, round and deeply orange sugar pumpkins from a big pile at my local grocery.  Two, and not just the sufficient one, because...I get excited.  Quest fulfilling enthusiasm is a powerful thing.

And speaking of powerful things, I'm sure all you pie people out there will confirm, once you start thinking about pie you can't compartmentalize that kind of want.  It calls for instant gratification.  Back in the kitchen, it's pie time.

To make pumpkin puree is a simple task.  The largest challenge really lies in getting into the pumpkin itself.  With a sharp knife, stabbing at the thick rind I felt ghoulish, a little like some form of vegetarian butcher.  Then, shaking the ghoul and setting down the knife, breaking open the pumpkin, comes a beauty moment.  Beauty moments are what I call those times when you, a true lover of food, think to yourself just how beautiful -- physically, colorfully, texturally -- food can be.  When you think, "that grows, naturally...like that!"  My fellow pie lovers, a beauty moment:

Scraping out the flesh I remember being a little girl, soaking my fingers into slimy, stringy pumpkin goo to pick out seeds for toasting on pumpkin carving night.  I make sure to save the seeds from these sugar pumpkins to do the same.

Once clean, the halves go face down on parchment lined baking sheets and into a toasty 425-450 degree F oven.  Working on the crust I'll admit, a near crisis ensues as I nearly forget about the precious beauty moment inspiring pumpkins.  It's a mystery among many burn-prone bakers...how when things go into the oven simultaneously the mind goes out for a drink.

But I come to just in time.  A small pumpkin should take about 40 minutes until the flesh is soft and the skin peels right off.

Once cool, the food processor comes out.  A few pulses, a whir, a hum, and the pumpkin turns into a sweet, brilliant, glistening pumpkin-pie-dream-fulfilling puree.

The rest is just like mom makes.  Eggs, cinnamon, allspice, sugar.  Adding a little more spice than the recipe calls for I watch the mixture turn a deep, rich and warm brown.  I pour it into the unbaked, not quite perfectly (yet) crimped crust.  And into the oven it goes.

Coming out, I think, "My god I love pie!"  Smelling it hot out of the oven I think it's a shame pumpkin pie tastes so much better chilled.  Waiting for it to cool I think how surprisingly happy I now am to have a freezer full of excessive amounts of pumpkin puree (re: the pumpkin buying enthusiasm).

The result of the real pumpkin adventure?  Worth it.  Perhaps worth getting excited and buying two, making extra puree and having it on hand to keep for the next time...less messy, and quicker.  But turning a pumpkin into a pie is a trick worth feeling enthusiastic about.  The flavor is sweet, but in an organic way, more complex and rich.  I didn't include a recipe for the pie because you can simply slip your puree into your own favorite pie recipe (I know pies can get very personal.)  You will however find a seed suggestion...for something to eat while you are waiting for the pie to cool.

Spiced Vanilla Pumpkin Seeds

The cleaned seeds from 1 pumpkin

Melted butter to coat

Sugar to coat

1/2 vanilla bean, scraped

approx 1/2 t spice blend (or spice to taste)

Spice blend:

2 parts cinnamon

1 part nutmeg

1 part allspice

1/2 part cardamom

1.  Toss seeds in melted butter.

2.  Sprinkle with sugar and toss to coat.

3.  Stir in the inside of vanilla bean and spice blend...add more or less spice according to your taste.

4.  Spread evenly on a parchment lined baking sheet.

5.  Bake at 350 degrees F until golden brown, stirring often.

Wishful Whiskeying: Part II, bourbon in the morning?

In the past two days something has gone awry. Don't worry, the bourbon is tasting delicious. But...somehow instead of slipping on that red dress, I've found myself sipping from a shot glass in my robe and slippers.

Now, now. I'm just tasting. And while I'm not suggesting you complement your morning omelet with a strong drink (other than a good dark roast cup of joe), it's just been too exciting to wait until the sun goes down to taste the changes in the bourbon each day. Right away it grew cloudier as the pears rose to the top, the nuts settling to the bottom.


On day two it was softer...I sipped and when no whiskey face ensued I nearly fell out of my slippers. Today I could start to taste pear and the sugars from the fruit. Looking for a little more spice we added half of one cinnamon stick and another tablespoon size piece of ginger.

Remember, before you try your mix each day give the jar a slow turn upside down to gently stir it up. For now our jar is back on the shelf and tasting like it will only need a few more days worth of infusing. All the fun is in making it exactly how you like; mixing and waiting and sipping...even in your slippers.

Check back soon for the final report and a cocktail recipe suited for sleepy, post-Thanksgiving dinner night caps.