15.12.2009 - The Quickest Thanksgiving Turkey

Steps 1-12: Roasting the Turkey

Figure five-and-a-half-to-six-and-a-half-hours roasting at 325 degrees F for a twenty- to twenty-two-pound unstuffed moderately chilled turkey.

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

2. Lightly cook one cup each chopped carrots and onions for five to eight minutes; chop and set aside two cups each raw carrots and onions.

3. Dry the turkey inside and out with paper towels.

4. Sprinkle the cavity with two teaspoons salt and add cooked vegetables, along with a handful each of parsley and celery tops.

5. With a large needle and strong string, sew down the neck and cent flaps, and truss the legs and wings (nothing looks so indecent as a turkey with legs akimbo and cavity gapping; it deserves a more dignified fate).

6. Rub the turkey all over with soft butter, and place it breast up on a rack in a roasting pan.

15.12.2009 - bringing you seven different

1. Don't start planning too early. Sure, if you're hosting Thanksgiving for the first time, you're going to be anxious and want to dive into planning as early as possible to make yourself feel better. Don't. You really shouldn't start talking turkey until November 1. Thanksgiving burnout isn't pretty.

2. Make people commit to attending. "I'll try to drop by" won't cut it — you'll either end up with too much food or too little.

3. Put your guests to work. Everyone loves a cocktail hour. And football games. But the surest way to get everyone in the house interacting and chatting is to hand them all knives (or vegetable peelers, if they're certifiably incompetent in the kitchen) and sic them on the vegetables.

4. You are the boss. Make it clear, from the beginning, that you're running the Thanksgiving show. And own the role, so that your guests don't end up bringing you seven different variations on green bean casserole. Take charge. No one will hate you for it.

5. Buffets are bad. It's okay to serve the meal family-style, but if you can't put everyone at a table (even if it's not the same table) with a plate and a chair, then rent some gear. (It's not that expensive — at the most, chairs will run you three bucks. Tables, eight bucks.) Nowhere is it written that the Pilgrims balanced plates on their knees.

6. Use place cards. The secret to good dinner conversation lies in controlling where the extroverts sit. Don't let your guests play musical chairs. Left to their own devices, the drinkers will congregate in a loud corner, the older folks will sit in a pack, silent and alone, while the children (who invariably put at a different table, away from their parents) systematically destroy Thanksgiving.

15.12.2009 - Thanksgiving is the best possible

Thanksgiving, the first and most emphatically American holiday of the season, is also the best. You're not yet exhausted from a binge of over indulgence, carousing at office parties, and suffering through family obligations. And if you eat too much on Thanksgiving? Who cares! You've got a long weekend to look forward to. And no one's burdened by the two traditional sources of seasonal anxiety: gifts and religion.

No doubt about it — Thanksgiving is the best possible way to kick off the holiday season. But hosting Thanksgiving isn't the same thing as inviting some people over, turning on the backyard barbecue and opening a bag of chips. It requires planning and organization to work. Here are six ways to ensure your Thanksgiving is memorable for the right reasons

15.12.2009 - understand that measurements

He tells me no one has ever invited him for dinner and cooked from one of his books. He stays for four hours. You see why Keller loves this so much. It all matters to him — the smells, the music, the storytelling, the flavors. And you understand that measurements — while important for a cook like me — are training wheels. "If it calls for a quarter cup of chopped parsley, do you really need to measure?" he says. "Does it matter if it's an eighth of a cup?" After that, it becomes impossible to do something wrong. The way everything tastes will be the way it was supposed to taste.

He drops the best kind of advice and wisdom: the kind that sounds obvious but isn't. From his cookbook:

One of the great things about cooking is that no single task is particularly difficult.

If you could only have one pan in your kitchen, [a cast-iron skillet] is the one I'd give you.

From his mouth tonight:

The thing about mashed potatoes is, if they sit too long, we can add a little more cream. It'll bring them right back.

The guests can wait for the food, but the food can't wait for the guests.

Sorry, I'm always cleaning up. But that way when dinner's done, we can just go to sleep.

15.12.2009 - He looks like he's concentrating

"Don't tell the girls," he said.

Keller jokes without laughing. He doesn't give nonessential advice. He asks a lot of questions, because he likes information. Information helps him not worry, adapt. Like, for example, I tell him I oversalted the corn. He shrugs. We don't serve it right away, but two hours later he says, "Where's that corn?" and uses it as a condiment on the fish, instead of salt.

We eat. Six courses. I watch Keller. He looks like he's concentrating, which I take to be something like reverence. During the meal he toasts both me and his restaurants. He tells stories, including one about the first time he killed a rabbit with his bare hands. When the playlist stops at one point, he calls to me, "Chef! Music." Everyone loves the food — each dish is the best version of that dish we've ever tasted. The bacon melts into the sweet, briny chowder like cream. ("If this chowder is any indication, it's a good cookbook," he says.) After the roast is carved, Keller passes around bits of crunchy, salty meat soaked in pan drippings, right off the knife. The brownies are the first I've ever baked and the best I've ever eaten — crunchy on top, then soft and moist.

15.12.2009 - We were idiots!

He's going to be here in five minutes.

He's probably six foot four and pivots around the kitchen with a quick, fidgety grace. His hair is fingered straight back, and his head swivels atop a mantislike frame, eyes target-locked on the countertop and stove — he sees everything at once. We didn't know if he would just be a guest tonight, chatting with the other guests (we're eight in all), or jump into the kitchen. We hoped he'd jump into the kitchen, and he does. The scallops need to be cooked, and right away Keller is asking for a pan and oil and the scallops.

TK: Who is this singing?

Me: Ray LaMontagne. You like it?

TK: Yeah. Okay, let's see what happens with these puppies. [Loud sizzling as raw scallops are placed in pan of hot oil.] You can't be afraid. So many people, they drop it in from way back here [leans away from pan] and then the oil splatters everywhere, and they hurt themselves. If you get really close, it's not so bad. See that?

Keller bends his whole body in close over the pan. I've never seen anyone cook this way, interact with food this way, and it's a surprising thrill. I'm making paper airplanes with Neil Armstrong.

TK [flipping perfectly browned scallop]: Heyyy! Look at that. That is beautiful. You just need to be patient with this stuff. People think that when they're cooking, they have to be moving stuff around. Leave it alone. I mean, smell that. That's what I love about food: the transformation. These didn't smell before, right? Now they're everywhere, so sweet and beautiful. And it happens like that. [Snaps.] The transformation of food is so exciting.

15.12.2009 - Get in the damn shower

A huge pot of potatoes languishes on the stove, untended. I don't know if that's bad — it seems like it would be, because they're already boiled, and now they're just macerating. I wonder if the water will break down the starch too much, although I don't know if that's bad or even possible, scientifically. The reason they're sitting in a hot puddle is that we, my brother, Mike, and I, don't have time to deal with them, because we haven't even started on the asparagus or the fish, and Thomas Keller, the greatest chef in the world, owner of restaurants including the French Laundry in Napa and Per Se in New York, which are always listed among the top five in the world, is supposed to be here in ten minutes. In Mike's apartment, with the windowless kitchen the size of a flight attendants' coffee station, for dinner. We're cooking for him. We're like a tribute band, and the real band is coming to see us perform.

Mike is at the sink in his boxers, sweating, hair flying, scrubbing bowls and pans like he's washing blood out of the carpet, and I'm thinking: You gotta be kidding me. Get in the damn shower.