My dad deep-fried a turkey on our back patio one year. Long story short, there was a spillage which resulted in a permanently discoloured patch of concrete that the dogs just loved to lick.
The turkey was good though.
EPWordsnatcher+38
Passed an open garage with TWO deep-fryers going, closely watched by a [probable] dad in a lawn chair. Smelled awesome. Good luck, double-deep-fryer-dude.
keristars+15
I was thinking the same thing, but differently, as I went on my bike ride through the neighborhood after reading these comments. I saw no less than 4 deep fryers going, and mentally tipped my hat to them.
Also, randomly, saw two completely different houses with sets of dishes left by the side of the driveway. And later, a mom and a daughter in bathrobes carrying casserole dishes and dutch ovens around a corner, but not anywhere near a front door/car.
What is wrong with my neighborhood.
EPWordsnatcher+8
THANKSGIVING.
Your neighborhood sounds fascinating.
GlowCloud+17
Deep frying turkey is my dad’s THING. It’s usually a summer-only event, but this year for Thanksgiving (Canadian), my parents’ oven broke the day of, and he was so damn thrilled because the last thing he’d brought down from their camper post-winterizing was his turkey-frying equipment and could save the day. The oven still hasn’t been fixed and you can tell he’s hoping for a repeat event.
If the hyphen counts, my dad’s answer would be “PUTT-PUTT”.
sayitplease+10
Dadmag also will allow M A N D A T O R Y. Meaning that no, you can’t escape the family during the holidays. We are fun. Look at how much fun this is. With family. Family fun.
Ordinarily+30
My boyfriend’s dad is deep-frying the turkey. They’ve done it for a few years now, but that doesn’t stop everyone from watching him as if waiting for a horrific accident.
ramina+63
This is the first time I’ve been on the Toast all week because of work, and just in time for Dad Magazine?Thank goodness!
I just turned to my dad and asked him what his thoughts on kale were. He said “it’s okay” and went into a five minute spiel about what kale was. Happy Thanksgiving, dads everywhere.
aravisthequeen+43
My parents grill their turkey every year on the Weber charcoal grill. I did not know until high school that other people cooked theirs in OVENS, what is what? 2 1/2 hours on the grill for the juiciest, tenderest turkey you’ve ever had in your life. (2 3/4 hours if it’s snowing outside or very windy.) No need to get up at the crack of dawn, and the oven is free for other stuff, and no danger of a tragic deep-frying accident where the house is burned down or anything.
He would be happy to offer tutorials. There is a great big “turkey hook” involved.
keristars+5
That sounds pretty amazing. I want to suggest it to my family for next year!
They usually have 2 deep-friers, an oven turkey, and then also a ham and sometimes grilled hot dogs, so why not add a grilled turkey???
aravisthequeen+10
DO IT IT’S SO AMAZING. I much prefer it to oven-cooked turkey. But I have never had it on a gas grill, so my experience is very limited.
Limited to DELICIOUSNESS.
keristars+3
A+
I will recommend this for Christmas dinner, too! My dad always loves to get the grill out and Christmas in Florida is a good time to do it.
Maryaed+16
In truth, there is never a reason to get up at the crack of dawn, unless it is to bake all the desserts. Only a very enormous turkey takes more than three hours unless you’re slow-baking it into sawdust, which you shouldn’t.
Es_Petal+3
I was going to say this! When I was little and my grandmother cooked at Christmas (since we were in the UK and so don;t do thanksgiving) she was a crack-of-dawn several years inthe oven person, but since my sister took over and I was more involved, it’s all much more civilised.
aravisthequeen+7
You know, where did that come from? The idea of the long-suffering cook getting up at 3am to start the turkey? Is it people who cook enormous 40-pound turkeys and want to eat at noon, or it was traditional to cook your turkey down to the bones, or cook it 12 hours at like 250 degrees or something? I have internalized this as some sort of Cultural Truth, but really the only time I’ve ever helped cook a turkey it only took 2 1/2 hours in the oven, and as mentioned my entire familial turkey-cooking experience involves a barbecue grill, so.
Maryaed+5
I think it is a combination of noon plus old-school cooking methods plus some kind of weird health department propaganda about cooking your turkey to death. When I was in grad school my roommate once insisted on going with package instructions, and even at a much lower heat than I ever use (I start it at 475 and turn it down to 350 once the skin has crisped) his turkey ended up done an hour and a half sooner than predicted and he was mystified, but the package instructions seem to reflect an alternate reality, or maybe some better safe than sorry conviction that a turkey that has any juice left in it must be teeming with deathly bacteria. However, the popup timer agreed with all the standard doneness indicators.
It’s a little mysterious.
I have two pumpkin pies in the oven and a chocolate chess one on the counter! It’s a good day. Turkey won’t go in till 1:00. Alas, my on-topic Dad is on the other coast.
MilesofMountain+4
I think turkeys used to be slowcooked. I saw a recipe last week that apparently came from the blogger’s grandma and I think it took 14 hours or so to cook. She said it works better for cage-free heritage breeds than modern methods because they’re a lot leaner and can get tough at high temperatures.
EPWordsnatcher+12
I have spent too many minutes trying to figure out the logistics of getting a turkey into a crock pot before I realized that slow-cook and crock-pot are not always the same thing.
keristars+3
It might also be small kitchens + lots of food to cook. At my big family reunion thanksgiving, they put the oven turkey in early in the morning to start cooking, then open and close the door all day while cooking other things in with it, and when it’s done, they set it out on the big makeshift buffet under a thing that’s like a tea-cozy but for a turkey dish, and get to using the oven for the rest of the big dishes that have more prep work and cook fast.
ETA: also, they aim to eat at noon, usually get to eat around 2, and then spend the rest of the afternoon/evening picking at the buffet table whenever they want a snack. there’s like 50-60 people, so.
EPWordsnatcher+44
The phrase “turkey hook” is reminding me of Alton Brown’s amazing turkey derrick, for when you want to use a ladder to deep-fry without mishaps. (That link is to a video, and you all should watch it immediately.)
edit: OMG of course there is a diagram:
irishbreakfasttime+20
the beacon light on the ladder really pushes it over the top. Only way it could get more dad is if it were called a “beak-on light, get it, bird joke?” Or if this PDF came packaged with the relevant Home Depot coupons.
EPWordsnatcher+10
I love the bit in the PDF where it talks about not leaving the bird even after it’s out of the oil because of the risk of animals or neighbors stealing it.
mistakesmade+4
In Texas, people sometimes smoke turkeys in their smokers. The result is delightful.
keristars+10
Haha, deep-fried turkey!
It’s an annual tradition (2 of them!) at my maternal family’s giant Thanksgiving family reunion on the shores of the Suwanee River, where folks bring tents and their campers and if they don’t have one, then extra blankets for my great-uncle’s floors. There’s also an enormous bonfire that he preps all year with brush that he clears from the woods on his property. My great-uncle is SUCH a dad, and so are 90% of the fathers (and some of the mothers) that head out their each year.
I haven’t actually been in a few years because all those people is exhausting if I can’t hide in a tent/camper to nap and I’ve had to work the Friday after, so I’ve done Thanksgiving with my dad and smom instead. There are no deep-fried turkeys in that house. 🙁
The other tradition is drinking beer by the fire and throwing the cans in to cause sparks, though I keep hoping they’ve grown out of that, and maybe they have.
deliachristina+73
Can we have a special edition of Dad Mag for Black history month? My dad has lots of wisdom to share: On how Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor (or any public black figure actually), was really assassinated; how there’s no good music unless Lou Rawlins is singing it; and bulk toilet paper (well, this might be universal…)
donkeywork+14
Bulk toilet paper and the superiority of Lou Rawls: both truths universally acknowledged.
keristars+23
How much fuss did the Dads make when the crossword was missing, though?
even if they never got around to finishing it and only did a few answers while waiting for the morning coffee to brew, because the newspaper’s sudoku puzzle the day DAD magazine arrives was always ★★★★★ DIFFICULT level and “ooh a challenge!”
anninyn+80
‘A New Jumper: You Don’t Need One, the Motheaten Rag You’ve Had Since 1997 is Just Fine’ (Americans: Jumper= Sweater/Pullover) ‘Winter Fashion: Only Wusses Wear Hats, Gloves and Scarves’ ‘Your Daughters Husband: He Should Really Buy A New Space Heater Before Your Little Girl Freezes To Death, You Had Better Call Him’.
My parents took me and my husband out for my birthday lunch. My husband and my father shared a charcuterie plate, which was all local produce and meat, and were painstakingly fair about sharing the different meats. However, they politely argued in the most restrained-yet-masculine way I have ever seen about who got the last special pickled onion.
apple_pi+28
Alternatively: You Only Need a Hat, 70% of your Body Heat Escapes Through the Top of your Head.
leahrobinn+11
My dad is more of the ‘You don’t need to turn the heater on, just put on more clothes’ variety.
Also, he maintains that toasting is ONLY for stale bread, and once referred to a mid-range expensive cheese that me and my partner were using to make the most incredible and fattening cheese sausages as ‘salad cheese’, which translates to ‘must only be enjoyed with iceberg lettuce and slices of tomato otherwise it’s a horrifying waste’. ‘Salad cheese’ is one of our favourite phrases now.
erinmarkel1+14
MY DAD JUST DISCOVERED KALE. To be fair, it was my mom’s doing, though.
tenyaluna+60
I remember once my dad had grown a variety of kale, mustard greens, collards, etc. He wanted to give some to me and my best friend. Since the volume of greens is rather large, he put them in a black 40 gal garbage bag. I brought them over to my friend, saying “my dad sends his love! and greens!” and hoisted the bag of greens into her kitchen. She looked at it doubtfully. Sensing her doubt, I began shaking the bag at her face and explained “THIS IS HOW MY FATHER EXPRESSES LOVE!”
As an aside, they were delicious.
winterbymorning+5
Will there be a Thanksgiving open thread?
My family doesn’t do Thanksgiving so my dad has very little experience cooking turkeys, but he does love this traditional Romanian aspic dish around the holidays as well as this lamb haggis thing. Both are 100% guaranteed to make me gag every time so I very generously let him have my share.
aravisthequeen+6
I HOPE SO WORK IS SO BORING
malemisandrist+5
I hope so as well! I am “celebrating” alone across the Atlantic. First Thanksgiving of solitude has been harder than I expected, really. Some kind of company would be nice 🙂
even though I am vegetarian and aspics are therefore out of the question for me, I still find the aspic, just as a concept, so fascinating and exotic.
bookwormV+8
“This is despite the generally low nutritional qualities of the dish, as well as a taste and look most people (including most Serbs and Macedonians) find unappealing.”
The Wikipedia article is really selling it.
winterbymorning+5
I really like the implication – probably not deliberate, but you never know – that your typical Serb or Macedonian has bad taste in food, so if even a Serb or Macedonian thinks this dish is unappealing, then you KNOW it’s gross!
mbculver+31
I just found out that spinach kicks serious kale ass, both in the taste and the nutrition categories, and have proudly been telling everyone I know, Dad-style.
This is my second Thanksgiving without my dad, and I still miss him so much. This morning while I was prepping the turkey, I sang “Everybody knows…A TURKEY” really loud in his honor. Here’s to you, Dad.
Fair_Amoret+6
EVERYBODY KNOWS A TURKEY. This was my dad’s go-to “guess the Christmas song based on a snippet of lyrics” game stumper (plainly chosen more because he found it hilarious than for difficulty). He’s been gone seven years now. Thanks for reminding me of that memory. 🙂
keristars+5
I AM SO EXCITED to hear that about spinach.
When I was a kid I adored collards like you can’t believe and ate them as soon as they were boiled or steamed with or without the bacon and butter and seasoning ate them up so fast
And then I got sick from eating too much one day and now I have an aversion to most leafy greens that aren’t baby spinach. I get to feel superior about my preference now, not embarrassed!
Ah, shit. She was the only murder mystery writer I really enjoyed. Time to go re-read her treasures on a dark, gloomy day.
dorianneemmerton+20
The only time Dad Magazine has ever really spoken to me was once when they had a TINKERING! headline.
Toast, I am offering to do an issue dedicated to Dads who are former bikers, mechanics with no high school diploma or consistent employment, and look like Jerry Garcia. (Or is that just me?)
EPWordsnatcher+9
One of my uncles was that dad! He drove a bulldozer and an absolutely amazing collection of STUFF in his basement.
Our best friend’s dad lived with Timothy Leary, does that count?
leslieellenjones+7
My coworker was telling me earlier this week about a Thanksgiving green bean recipe she’d been given that sounded pretty good, except that it started with “Boil the beans for 3-1/2 hours.” We spent much time that should have been devoted to work discussing how this could turn out as anything other than green bean puree (and not particularly green, at that). Forget about different standard and theories in cooking–how can this recipe work in the real world?
I was always taught that you roast the turkey at 350 for 15 minutes per pound, plus 45 minutes if it’s stuffed, but to start testing it about half an hour before it “should” be done. Though apparently now stuffing a bird is tantamount to holiday-sanctioned murder, which those “put the bird in at dawn” folks would have laughed to scorn.
irishbreakfasttime+3
all I can think of is those beans must have been dried and needed to be rehydrated? But even with dry black beans that’s a long time to boil (vs. soak or simmer). You’d need to keep replenishing the water, too, even with a lid on…
The rationalist in me wants to say, oh, they must have been starting with leather britches beans (really, really dried and tough). But then I remember that my Virginia grandmother cooked green beans like that, and collards — hours on a simmer on the stove, with a chunk of some kind of pork fat in with them. They came out greyish and auto-pureed, but tasty.
These might be also be old enough recipes to have been designed for the back of a woodstove or edge of a fire, when `keep it boiling-ish’ was about all the control one could spare. Or it could just be fear of food.
MilesofMountain+17
My dad came to visit me this fall and insisted on taking a picture of my kale to show my mom. We spent a lot of time talking about it, and how it was growing better than the stuff in my parents’ garden and why that might be.
PonyAlong+7
I’m so picturing this image of you & your Dad having this conversation and I’m loving it (and then it makes me miss my Dad so, so much). Here’s to Dads and their gardens!
donkeywork+54
I bounded out the door this morning to buy a newspaper, the only Thanksgiving tradition I hold fast to, only to discover the corner market hadn’t received them yet. Undeterred I plowed on to the nearest strip mall, where I learned that today’s paper is being sold at Sunday prices because it is so packed with ads (and also was sold out). As I was not carrying Sunday money or a time machine I walked home, fuming about the state of the nation in my LL Bean flannel, then realized I was having a bona fide Dad attack. So I was happy to see this today.
erma+33
My dad pronounces kale “kah-lay.” I should’ve corrected him the last he said that, right?
EPWordsnatcher+31
NO NEVER
J_M+14
NOOOPE! I never corrected mine when he said how great it was that they now had E-span and E-span Two! You know, for watching The Sports.
serayim+6
That’s how you say it in Turkish! It means castle. There’s a great breakfast restaurant called Kale (because it’s under a castle) in Istanbul, but as a foreigner in Turkey the name always makes me giggle. They don’t serve kale, unfortunately.
loosechange+30
He obviously got burned with “quinoa” last time and wanted to get ahead of the curve here.
aravisthequeen+2
I have a bean soup recipe that I make with Great Northern beans, and it cooks about 3 to 4 hours, at a simmer. And even so I have to keep an eye on the water because it starts with eight cups and ends up somewhere around two. STILL.
Currer_Belle+8
Yep, my dad scorched our backyard deep-frying the turkey one year. Fortunately it was just the yard and nothing else.
You got this, Dad.
J_M+26
Don’t miss the great sidebar story, “Electric Knives: The Only Way to Carve! Seriously, Let Me Show You, It’s Amazing”
sulliecircusnachos+4
My mother’s boyfriend of six years drove 20 miles back to his house to get his electric carving knife.
My dad, on the other hand, took us to Denny’s one year.
mkpatter+5
I’ve never seen or eaten a deep fried turkey. I’m kind of sad about it.
Megano!
I've never seen or eaten a deep fried turkey. I'm kind of sad about it.
salpiglossis
Just had a very sweet visit with my Dad. This cheers up the day-after blues.
Jaya
Our best friend's dad lived with Timothy Leary, does that count?
clew
The rationalist in me wants to say, oh, they must have been starting with leather britches beans (really, really dried and tough). But then I remember that my Virginia grandmother cooked green beans like that, and collards — hours on a simmer on the stove, with a chunk of some kind of pork fat in with them. They came out greyish and auto-pureed, but tasty.
These might be also be old enough recipes to have been designed for the back of a woodstove or edge of a fire, when `keep it boiling-ish' was about all the control one could spare. Or it could just be fear of food.
testingwithfire+1
I am really late but I just wanted to say that the guy on the cover, to my eye, is the Daddiest dad yet.
sarahcircusnachos
My mother's boyfriend of six years drove 20 miles back to his house to get his electric carving knife.
My dad, on the other hand, took us to Denny's one year.
My dad deep-fried a turkey on our back patio one year. Long story short, there was a spillage which resulted in a permanently discoloured patch of concrete that the dogs just loved to lick.
The turkey was good though.
Passed an open garage with TWO deep-fryers going, closely watched by a [probable] dad in a lawn chair. Smelled awesome. Good luck, double-deep-fryer-dude.
I was thinking the same thing, but differently, as I went on my bike ride through the neighborhood after reading these comments. I saw no less than 4 deep fryers going, and mentally tipped my hat to them.
Also, randomly, saw two completely different houses with sets of dishes left by the side of the driveway. And later, a mom and a daughter in bathrobes carrying casserole dishes and dutch ovens around a corner, but not anywhere near a front door/car.
What is wrong with my neighborhood.
THANKSGIVING.
Your neighborhood sounds fascinating.
Deep frying turkey is my dad’s THING. It’s usually a summer-only event, but this year for Thanksgiving (Canadian), my parents’ oven broke the day of, and he was so damn thrilled because the last thing he’d brought down from their camper post-winterizing was his turkey-frying equipment and could save the day. The oven still hasn’t been fixed and you can tell he’s hoping for a repeat event.
But it IS super delicious.
I love this blog post, and I think it’s relevant.
http://outofcharacter.net/blog/2013/2/25/suddenly…
The twist: it’s just FAMILYFUN.
If the hyphen counts, my dad’s answer would be “PUTT-PUTT”.
Dadmag also will allow M A N D A T O R Y.
Meaning that no, you can’t escape the family during the holidays. We are fun. Look at how much fun this is. With family. Family fun.
My boyfriend’s dad is deep-frying the turkey. They’ve done it for a few years now, but that doesn’t stop everyone from watching him as if waiting for a horrific accident.
This is the first time I’ve been on the Toast all week because of work, and just in time for Dad Magazine?Thank goodness!
I just turned to my dad and asked him what his thoughts on kale were. He said “it’s okay” and went into a five minute spiel about what kale was. Happy Thanksgiving, dads everywhere.
My parents grill their turkey every year on the Weber charcoal grill. I did not know until high school that other people cooked theirs in OVENS, what is what? 2 1/2 hours on the grill for the juiciest, tenderest turkey you’ve ever had in your life. (2 3/4 hours if it’s snowing outside or very windy.) No need to get up at the crack of dawn, and the oven is free for other stuff, and no danger of a tragic deep-frying accident where the house is burned down or anything.
He would be happy to offer tutorials. There is a great big “turkey hook” involved.
That sounds pretty amazing. I want to suggest it to my family for next year!
They usually have 2 deep-friers, an oven turkey, and then also a ham and sometimes grilled hot dogs, so why not add a grilled turkey???
DO IT IT’S SO AMAZING. I much prefer it to oven-cooked turkey. But I have never had it on a gas grill, so my experience is very limited.
Limited to DELICIOUSNESS.
A+
I will recommend this for Christmas dinner, too! My dad always loves to get the grill out and Christmas in Florida is a good time to do it.
In truth, there is never a reason to get up at the crack of dawn, unless it is to bake all the desserts. Only a very enormous turkey takes more than three hours unless you’re slow-baking it into sawdust, which you shouldn’t.
I was going to say this! When I was little and my grandmother cooked at Christmas (since we were in the UK and so don;t do thanksgiving) she was a crack-of-dawn several years inthe oven person, but since my sister took over and I was more involved, it’s all much more civilised.
You know, where did that come from? The idea of the long-suffering cook getting up at 3am to start the turkey? Is it people who cook enormous 40-pound turkeys and want to eat at noon, or it was traditional to cook your turkey down to the bones, or cook it 12 hours at like 250 degrees or something? I have internalized this as some sort of Cultural Truth, but really the only time I’ve ever helped cook a turkey it only took 2 1/2 hours in the oven, and as mentioned my entire familial turkey-cooking experience involves a barbecue grill, so.
I think it is a combination of noon plus old-school cooking methods plus some kind of weird health department propaganda about cooking your turkey to death. When I was in grad school my roommate once insisted on going with package instructions, and even at a much lower heat than I ever use (I start it at 475 and turn it down to 350 once the skin has crisped) his turkey ended up done an hour and a half sooner than predicted and he was mystified, but the package instructions seem to reflect an alternate reality, or maybe some better safe than sorry conviction that a turkey that has any juice left in it must be teeming with deathly bacteria. However, the popup timer agreed with all the standard doneness indicators.
It’s a little mysterious.
I have two pumpkin pies in the oven and a chocolate chess one on the counter! It’s a good day. Turkey won’t go in till 1:00. Alas, my on-topic Dad is on the other coast.
I think turkeys used to be slowcooked. I saw a recipe last week that apparently came from the blogger’s grandma and I think it took 14 hours or so to cook. She said it works better for cage-free heritage breeds than modern methods because they’re a lot leaner and can get tough at high temperatures.
I have spent too many minutes trying to figure out the logistics of getting a turkey into a crock pot before I realized that slow-cook and crock-pot are not always the same thing.
It might also be small kitchens + lots of food to cook. At my big family reunion thanksgiving, they put the oven turkey in early in the morning to start cooking, then open and close the door all day while cooking other things in with it, and when it’s done, they set it out on the big makeshift buffet under a thing that’s like a tea-cozy but for a turkey dish, and get to using the oven for the rest of the big dishes that have more prep work and cook fast.
ETA: also, they aim to eat at noon, usually get to eat around 2, and then spend the rest of the afternoon/evening picking at the buffet table whenever they want a snack. there’s like 50-60 people, so.
The phrase “turkey hook” is reminding me of Alton Brown’s amazing turkey derrick, for when you want to use a ladder to deep-fry without mishaps. (That link is to a video, and you all should watch it immediately.)
edit: OMG of course there is a diagram:
the beacon light on the ladder really pushes it over the top. Only way it could get more dad is if it were called a “beak-on light, get it, bird joke?” Or if this PDF came packaged with the relevant Home Depot coupons.
I love the bit in the PDF where it talks about not leaving the bird even after it’s out of the oil because of the risk of animals or neighbors stealing it.
In Texas, people sometimes smoke turkeys in their smokers. The result is delightful.
Haha, deep-fried turkey!
It’s an annual tradition (2 of them!) at my maternal family’s giant Thanksgiving family reunion on the shores of the Suwanee River, where folks bring tents and their campers and if they don’t have one, then extra blankets for my great-uncle’s floors. There’s also an enormous bonfire that he preps all year with brush that he clears from the woods on his property. My great-uncle is SUCH a dad, and so are 90% of the fathers (and some of the mothers) that head out their each year.
I haven’t actually been in a few years because all those people is exhausting if I can’t hide in a tent/camper to nap and I’ve had to work the Friday after, so I’ve done Thanksgiving with my dad and smom instead. There are no deep-fried turkeys in that house. 🙁
The other tradition is drinking beer by the fire and throwing the cans in to cause sparks, though I keep hoping they’ve grown out of that, and maybe they have.
Can we have a special edition of Dad Mag for Black history month? My dad has lots of wisdom to share: On how Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor (or any public black figure actually), was really assassinated; how there’s no good music unless Lou Rawlins is singing it; and bulk toilet paper (well, this might be universal…)
Bulk toilet paper and the superiority of Lou Rawls: both truths universally acknowledged.
How much fuss did the Dads make when the crossword was missing, though?
even if they never got around to finishing it and only did a few answers while waiting for the morning coffee to brew, because the newspaper’s sudoku puzzle the day DAD magazine arrives was always ★★★★★ DIFFICULT level and “ooh a challenge!”
‘A New Jumper: You Don’t Need One, the Motheaten Rag You’ve Had Since 1997 is Just Fine’ (Americans: Jumper= Sweater/Pullover)
‘Winter Fashion: Only Wusses Wear Hats, Gloves and Scarves’
‘Your Daughters Husband: He Should Really Buy A New Space Heater Before Your Little Girl Freezes To Death, You Had Better Call Him’.
My parents took me and my husband out for my birthday lunch. My husband and my father shared a charcuterie plate, which was all local produce and meat, and were painstakingly fair about sharing the different meats. However, they politely argued in the most restrained-yet-masculine way I have ever seen about who got the last special pickled onion.
Alternatively: You Only Need a Hat, 70% of your Body Heat Escapes Through the Top of your Head.
My dad is more of the ‘You don’t need to turn the heater on, just put on more clothes’ variety.
Also, he maintains that toasting is ONLY for stale bread, and once referred to a mid-range expensive cheese that me and my partner were using to make the most incredible and fattening cheese sausages as ‘salad cheese’, which translates to ‘must only be enjoyed with iceberg lettuce and slices of tomato otherwise it’s a horrifying waste’.
‘Salad cheese’ is one of our favourite phrases now.
MY DAD JUST DISCOVERED KALE. To be fair, it was my mom’s doing, though.
I remember once my dad had grown a variety of kale, mustard greens, collards, etc. He wanted to give some to me and my best friend. Since the volume of greens is rather large, he put them in a black 40 gal garbage bag. I brought them over to my friend, saying “my dad sends his love! and greens!” and hoisted the bag of greens into her kitchen. She looked at it doubtfully. Sensing her doubt, I began shaking the bag at her face and explained “THIS IS HOW MY FATHER EXPRESSES LOVE!”
As an aside, they were delicious.
Will there be a Thanksgiving open thread?
My family doesn’t do Thanksgiving so my dad has very little experience cooking turkeys, but he does love this traditional Romanian aspic dish around the holidays as well as this lamb haggis thing. Both are 100% guaranteed to make me gag every time so I very generously let him have my share.
I HOPE SO WORK IS SO BORING
I hope so as well! I am “celebrating” alone across the Atlantic. First Thanksgiving of solitude has been harder than I expected, really. Some kind of company would be nice 🙂
even though I am vegetarian and aspics are therefore out of the question for me, I still find the aspic, just as a concept, so fascinating and exotic.
“This is despite the generally low nutritional qualities of the dish, as well as a taste and look most people (including most Serbs and Macedonians) find unappealing.”
The Wikipedia article is really selling it.
I really like the implication – probably not deliberate, but you never know – that your typical Serb or Macedonian has bad taste in food, so if even a Serb or Macedonian thinks this dish is unappealing, then you KNOW it’s gross!
I just found out that spinach kicks serious kale ass, both in the taste and the nutrition categories, and have proudly been telling everyone I know, Dad-style.
This is my second Thanksgiving without my dad, and I still miss him so much. This morning while I was prepping the turkey, I sang “Everybody knows…A TURKEY” really loud in his honor. Here’s to you, Dad.
EVERYBODY KNOWS A TURKEY. This was my dad’s go-to “guess the Christmas song based on a snippet of lyrics” game stumper (plainly chosen more because he found it hilarious than for difficulty). He’s been gone seven years now. Thanks for reminding me of that memory. 🙂
I AM SO EXCITED
to hear that about spinach.
When I was a kid I adored collards like you can’t believe and ate them as soon as they were boiled or steamed with or without the bacon and butter and seasoning ate them up so fast
And then I got sick from eating too much one day and now I have an aversion to most leafy greens that aren’t baby spinach. I get to feel superior about my preference now, not embarrassed!
totally off topic: PD James (Cover Her Face) has died – – http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/27/pd-j…
Ah, shit. She was the only murder mystery writer I really enjoyed. Time to go re-read her treasures on a dark, gloomy day.
The only time Dad Magazine has ever really spoken to me was once when they had a TINKERING! headline.
Toast, I am offering to do an issue dedicated to Dads who are former bikers, mechanics with no high school diploma or consistent employment, and look like Jerry Garcia. (Or is that just me?)
One of my uncles was that dad! He drove a bulldozer and an absolutely amazing collection of STUFF in his basement.
Gonna try to post a picture…
I suck. Anyway, if this works, this is *part* of my Dad’s….. stuff. https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7465/15891657772_8a…
DADNESS CONFIRMED
Our best friend’s dad lived with Timothy Leary, does that count?
My coworker was telling me earlier this week about a Thanksgiving green bean recipe she’d been given that sounded pretty good, except that it started with “Boil the beans for 3-1/2 hours.” We spent much time that should have been devoted to work discussing how this could turn out as anything other than green bean puree (and not particularly green, at that). Forget about different standard and theories in cooking–how can this recipe work in the real world?
I was always taught that you roast the turkey at 350 for 15 minutes per pound, plus 45 minutes if it’s stuffed, but to start testing it about half an hour before it “should” be done. Though apparently now stuffing a bird is tantamount to holiday-sanctioned murder, which those “put the bird in at dawn” folks would have laughed to scorn.
all I can think of is those beans must have been dried and needed to be rehydrated? But even with dry black beans that’s a long time to boil (vs. soak or simmer). You’d need to keep replenishing the water, too, even with a lid on…
ETA: googled, this is apparently a thing! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28… It’s definitely “simmer,” though, not “boil.”
Mind blown. Trying this tomorrow.
The rationalist in me wants to say, oh, they must have been starting with leather britches beans (really, really dried and tough). But then I remember that my Virginia grandmother cooked green beans like that, and collards — hours on a simmer on the stove, with a chunk of some kind of pork fat in with them. They came out greyish and auto-pureed, but tasty.
These might be also be old enough recipes to have been designed for the back of a woodstove or edge of a fire, when `keep it boiling-ish’ was about all the control one could spare. Or it could just be fear of food.
My dad came to visit me this fall and insisted on taking a picture of my kale to show my mom. We spent a lot of time talking about it, and how it was growing better than the stuff in my parents’ garden and why that might be.
I’m so picturing this image of you & your Dad having this conversation and I’m loving it (and then it makes me miss my Dad so, so much). Here’s to Dads and their gardens!
I bounded out the door this morning to buy a newspaper, the only Thanksgiving tradition I hold fast to, only to discover the corner market hadn’t received them yet. Undeterred I plowed on to the nearest strip mall, where I learned that today’s paper is being sold at Sunday prices because it is so packed with ads (and also was sold out). As I was not carrying Sunday money or a time machine I walked home, fuming about the state of the nation in my LL Bean flannel, then realized I was having a bona fide Dad attack. So I was happy to see this today.
My dad pronounces kale “kah-lay.” I should’ve corrected him the last he said that, right?
NO NEVER
NOOOPE! I never corrected mine when he said how great it was that they now had E-span and E-span Two! You know, for watching The Sports.
That’s how you say it in Turkish! It means castle. There’s a great breakfast restaurant called Kale (because it’s under a castle) in Istanbul, but as a foreigner in Turkey the name always makes me giggle. They don’t serve kale, unfortunately.
He obviously got burned with “quinoa” last time and wanted to get ahead of the curve here.
I have a bean soup recipe that I make with Great Northern beans, and it cooks about 3 to 4 hours, at a simmer. And even so I have to keep an eye on the water because it starts with eight cups and ends up somewhere around two. STILL.
Yep, my dad scorched our backyard deep-frying the turkey one year. Fortunately it was just the yard and nothing else.
You got this, Dad.
Don’t miss the great sidebar story, “Electric Knives: The Only Way to Carve! Seriously, Let Me Show You, It’s Amazing”
My mother’s boyfriend of six years drove 20 miles back to his house to get his electric carving knife.
My dad, on the other hand, took us to Denny’s one year.
I’ve never seen or eaten a deep fried turkey. I’m kind of sad about it.
I've never seen or eaten a deep fried turkey. I'm kind of sad about it.
Just had a very sweet visit with my Dad. This cheers up the day-after blues.
Our best friend's dad lived with Timothy Leary, does that count?
The rationalist in me wants to say, oh, they must have been starting with leather britches beans (really, really dried and tough). But then I remember that my Virginia grandmother cooked green beans like that, and collards — hours on a simmer on the stove, with a chunk of some kind of pork fat in with them. They came out greyish and auto-pureed, but tasty.
These might be also be old enough recipes to have been designed for the back of a woodstove or edge of a fire, when `keep it boiling-ish' was about all the control one could spare. Or it could just be fear of food.
I am really late but I just wanted to say that the guy on the cover, to my eye, is the Daddiest dad yet.
My mother's boyfriend of six years drove 20 miles back to his house to get his electric carving knife.
My dad, on the other hand, took us to Denny's one year.
All of Good Eats is actually Peak Dad behavior.