Author: Eric

Magic comes in a packet of seeds. Beet seeds are exponentially magical because their ‘seeds” are actually clusters of multiple seeds in a fuzzy nutlet or capsule (see image of magnified seed) which often results in “tufts” of beet seedlings along your careful row, and almost always requires thinning.
Continue reading “The Beet Goes On” →

For this year’s Thanksgiving (2005) I had the challenge of working with a large (about 25 lbs.) turkey when the size and time to roast could be an problem for other T-day items that required an oven that day for the small group (around 15 people) at this year’s meal.

The other challenge was to the notion of brining. With the publication of the revised edition of his culinary classic “On Food and Cooking,” author Harold McGee has loudly denounced the latest trend in turkey: brining. McGee contends that salty water merely dilutes the natural flavor of the meat, which is counter productive. His secret to a moist breast AND fully cooked leg and thigh is a temperature differential. From the article that had just appeared in the New York Times titled: “The Pilgrims Didn’t Brine” McGee explains:

“The trick is to establish an unevenness in the temperature of the two different parts, the breast and the thighs,” he said. The easiest way is to set the turkey on the counter and strap a couple of ice packs on the breast about an hour or so before roasting.

This year, Mr. McGee plans to increase the effect by starting the bird breast side down in a cold pan with cold vegetables and placing a sheet pan on the floor of the oven to slow the heat from the bottom. Then he’ll flip the turkey halfway through cooking.

Well, the Pilgrims PROBABLY didn’t brine (although they did preserve many meats in salt…), but it’s also likely that the Pilgrims didn’t eat turkey at the first Thanksgiving! We have been very happy with the results of brining our T-bird for the last five or six years, so I took this advice with a “grain of salt” but I was still intrigued by the notion that I might not be experiencing the full turkey flavor that McGee insists is being diluted. The other challenge was that brining such a large bird would require a large container not normally used for food (i.e. our plastic recycle bins), and that presented the possibility of introducing faint “off” flavors to the meat no matter how well scrubbed the bin was because plastic absorbs odors over time. The thought of turning our home-raised organic bird into something redolent of newspaper ink was distressing.
Continue reading “Thanksgiving 2006, Brunswick” →

When the couple that ran a free-range poultry business in our town got divorced they stopped raising chickens and turkeys. As a result we decided, together with neighbors, to raise our own birds this year, including the Thanksgiving turkey that we bring to Brunswick every year and cook for that assembled group.
Continue reading “Thanksgiving Turkeys” →