Ommmmm.  More like Ummmmmmm.  I am skeptical about this idea, but a lot of my closest friends, particularly my closest male friends seem enamoured with it.  Being a born and bred New Englander I have never encountered a Turducken, we’ve always kept our Thanksgivings to a plain turkey and a touch of familial tension; very little excitment over layered poultry.  In fact, I haven’t met anyone from the south yet who is a proponent of the Beast (read: Turducken) and I ask myself if it is a southern myth or if it is shame at the gluttony it represents. 

 

I am undecided if the gluttony of this dish is shameful or like a chocolate cake, or champagne and worthy reward for the holidays.  In general I am a stickler for knowing where my meat comes from, in the case of the Turducken, in order to justify it, I am for taking things one step further.  Each man (or woman) should hunt for his own hen, duck and turkey; each layer should serve as a reward.     Thanksgiving is a month away but everywhere I go there is talk of meats for the day.  Last night was a particularly carnivorous one as I listened to some friends of mine discuss the smoke-teepee in which they planned to cook the Turducken.  I then began to question how I, once nearly a vegetarian, friend of animals and vegans, fell in with this crowd. 

      I am actually a little nervous to mention this idea to my father, he likes experimenting with traditional foods and I don’t think he would much mind walking through the forest in search of at least a wild turkey.  Then again, he likely knows about the Turducken, I realize I am a little late to the table.   Maybe I will suggest it for the dinner next month.  Really, what is there to doubt about a whole animal terrine?

Lula’s Chocolate from Monterey is so incredibly good and we would know because of the amazing samples they sent us.  Maybe if you come in and beg we will give you a try.  I thought I had completely lost my sweet tooth, I haven’t been really hooked on a sweet in a while, but now I really cannot seem to stop eating this toffee; it is so smooth and crunchy, chocolatey and buttery.  I need to put the bag away and save some for everyone else.  Since it has only been sold on the west coast we are the only shop in the city who’s got it.  There are caramels, rockyroad marshmellow and some other addictive confections.  The company is family owned and operated by Scott Lund who follows his grandmother, Lula’s, recipes.   And it has arrived just in time to appease the most discerning trick-or-treater.

    Placemats are at the center of Italian eating.  If you are sitting at a table, you have a placemat in front of you.  I suppose it is a nice tradition, keeping things clean and tidy and not ruining one’s kitchen table.  The ironic thing is, however, that that the placemats often become dirty and worn so you are still eating on a suspicious surface.  The most problems infact, usually involve cheese.  Graded cheese, melted cheese, soft and sticky cheese, on the bottom sides of placemats all across Italy after months, even years of meals at the table.  I don’t mean to say that everyone has a house-full of dirty placemats, I admit it is probably just the people I know. 

    I once lived with two of the heaviest chainsmokers I have ever met for about six months.  They were cousins and created an axis of flith and confusion in our house, so strong, I nearly had to escape in the night.  They ashed their cigarette butts on their dinner plates after a meal, but the one time I sat down at the table and placed my dish directly on the wood they screamed in fright.  “Ma, sei pazza?”  I am afraid I was crazy because there was a reenactment of the same scenario only a week later at a friend’s house.  Had I learned nothing?  

      It isn’t that people don’t use placemats elsewhere,  it is just I have never seen any people use them with such urgency.  My grandmother used cloth placemats, which much like her tiled kitchen floor, served as a collection trough for anything fallen from plate or counter.  She did her best to rebel against the stereotype of the sparkling Sicilian kitchen.  The nuns from my Montessori kindergarten also were into placemats, but they made us clean them ourselves, with windex, when we were five. 

       I only think of it now because last week at my friend’s house, where he never is the one who cooks (his girlfriend and her sister do that…), he certainly remembered his placemats.  They were a little worn and had some bits of cheese embedded in them.  Frankly, it felt like home.  For all intensive purposes his kitchen was clean, but there was something antique about it all, some pieces that after decades would never change or vanish.