Roman sandals and Tuscan soup

I was named after my mother’s sister, my Aunt Michele. So it is not surprising that she has always been a role model of mine. As a child I admired her style. She was like a cool version of my mother. She was an artist. She lived in New York City. She wore big sunglasses. And she had the best clothes. I remember this amazing pair of sandals that she wore. They were those Roman style sandals that basically consist of a leather cord laced in a crisscrossing pattern over the foot and up the ankle. I must not have been shy about expressing my fondness for them, because shortly after seeing her wearing them, she sent me a pair. I wore them until they fell apart.

As an adult I have come to admire her for other reasons, among them her marvelous cooking. When I was 11-years-old she introduced me to blueberry pancakes and raw clams (not in the same meal). I ate asparagus for the first time at her dinner table when I was 13. Her blueberry pie won a prize at the state fair. And on a recent visit to her house, I watched her make moo shu pancakes from scratch (which was really cool, I have to get that recipe from her too).

She now lives in Connecticut and I am fortunate to live close enough to her to visit often. I have been twice in the past month, including a couple of days last week. The first night she made an incredible chicken caesar salad with the real-deal homemade dressing with raw egg yolks. The second night we had grilled swordfish with fruit salsa. I get hungry just thinking about it.

I constantly steal her recipes, one of which I will now share with you. This is a version of Tuscan bean soup. It is a basic recipe that invites tinkering, but it is often hard to find good basic recipes. I have messed with it a little and will probably continue to do so. In fact, I got a new idea from the most recent issue of Saveur (thank you, Hannah!). The next time I make it, I will include a small piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rind to flavor the broth.

Ingredients:
2 Italian sausages (I use hot, but mild is okay too)
1 onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
fresh tomatoes (I get the small container of cherry tomatoes and use them all)
2 cans cannellini beans
2 32oz. containers of chicken stock
1 bag fresh baby spinach
fresh chopped parsley
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Squeeze the sausages out of their casings into a big pot over medium heat. Break them up and let them cook for a few minutes. While the sausages are cooking, chop the onions, mince the garlic and quarter the tomatoes. When the sausages no longer appear pink, add the onion. When the onion starts to soften, add the garlic. After another minute, add the tomatoes. Stir and cook for a couple more minutes. Drain the beans, add them to the pot and stir. Add the chicken stock and raise the heat to high. Once the soup comes to a boil turn the heat down to maintain a simmer. Let the soup boil for about 30 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the spinach and stir until the spinach is wilted. Add the parsley and serve. Grate cheese over soup at the table.

I often make this soup in the morning when I have time and then reheat it right before dinner. When I do it that way, I wait to add the spinach and parsley until after I reheat it. It is also good the next day when I reheat it again, so that may not be necessary. My Aunt Michele also freezes the soup in lunch sized portions.

Christian raw food movement

This is so odd, I have to blog about it, even though no recipe is involved. A friend visited with his family for the holidays. They're a lovely family, very caring and sweet, and also very Christian. And right now, they're very into a specialized Christian raw foods movement.

It appears that it is possible to go so far to the right that you meet the left (and vice versa, of course). My friend's sister in law drives to a farm about once a week to pick up unpasturized milk from a farmer. She knows the name of the cow whose milk she drinks. What's more, influenced by the work of Rex Russell, author of "What the Bible Says About Healthy Living," she believes it to be in the best interest of her children to feed them unpasturized milk. According to her, Russell's book claims that, before the Industrialized Revolution, people were much healthier. Government agencies (read: big government) have come in to standardize food safety, but have instead removed all the vitamins from the food. Look in the Bible. People used to live for 100's of years.

Hogswollop, of course. I don't know about people living for 100's of years (I suspect they had a different counting system in the time of Genesis), but I'm certain that people were not healthier in, say, the 19th Century.

But beyond simply dismissing the Biblical argument, this Christian raw foods movement is interesting. It implies that Americans at all places on the political spectrum are looking for changes in food production and distribution, for ways to eat more natural food products with a deeper connection to the original agricultural product. As unhealthy as I think it may be to feed your kids unpasturized milk (see this CDC site and this FDT site on some of the health effects), it implies an amazing energy that could be helpfully used to push changes in the food system in the U.S., both through law and (even more effectively) through sheer market pressures. I can't wait for the first Hard-core-granola/Christian-raw-food get-together. For one thing, what would they bring if it were a pot luck?

PS and Bernice the Christmas pig

I am so sorry about your Uncle. It sounds like his funeral was a fitting tribute. I just hope he always ate all the food on his plate, so he can enjoy the hereafter as the satiated specter and not the hungry ghost.

I was always a bit confused when my mother used to tell my brothers and me that we had to finish our dinners because there are starving children in Africa. Now that I know about the hungry ghost, it makes a lot more sense. Your spring onion pancakes sound very tasty. I used to order something similar to that at "Congee Village," the Chinese restaurant I used to frequent when I lived in NYC. It did not have sprouts in it though.

I spent last weekend braving the hordes at all the big touristy spots in New York. We saw Santa at Macy's, the big tree at Rockefeller Center, two homeless guys getting stoned in Central Park, etc. Now I must prepare for the onslaught of family on Friday. So I am going to cheat a little and instead of writing a proper entry, I am going to post a story I wrote several years ago. It is the story of Bernice the Christmas pig.

Before I get to Bernice, I need to add a postscript to my previous entries. My mother read them and she has compelled me to make the following corrections:
1) When my Grandmother was born in Algeria it was a "department" of France, not a "colony." However, I am not sure that everyone who lived there at the time appreciated that distinction.
2) My Grandmother never made pie in Algeria or Cuba. She only started making pie when they all moved to Miami. My point about the tropical climate still stands, though.
3) The time my mother started to cook the Thanksgiving turkey with the bag of innards still inside, we did not have to trash the whole turkey. The turkey's parts were contained in a paper bag, not a plastic bag. The bag was removed and the turkey finished cooking uneventfully.
And finally, to add my own postscript, date bars do not freeze well. I defrosted them last weekend to distribute with other goodies as little Christmas gifts. They still tasted good, but the consistency was all wrong. They were a big gooey mess. I quickly whipped up another batch and we ate the gooey ones ourselves.

Now, on to Bernice. I originally wrote this essay as a submission for the "It Happened to Me" article in Jane magazine. It was rejected, but I am glad I wrote it. Rereading it today for the first time in years, it is nice to have all the details.

IT HAPPENED TO ME
Bernice had a lovely personality, but she tasted even better.

I don’t even like meat. My yearly meat consumption is probably equal to what most Americans eat in a week. But around Christmas time, all of that changes. My Cuban mother prepares a traditional dinner for Nochebuena, the Cuban Christmas Eve celebration. The feast’s highlight is my mother’s roast pork – it’s like butter! The aroma seeps from the oven for hours. When the roast finally comes out, each member of the family sneaks to the kitchen to snitch meat and crispy skin before dinner. For an instant I become a raging carnivore.

Last Christmas, my husband Matt and I were serving as Peace Corps volunteers in Cameroon. Surrounded by banana trees in equatorial heat, it never begins to look a lot like Christmas. And when Bing Crosby dreams of a white Christmas, it sounds more melancholic than ever. To alleviate our homesickness, Matt and I decided to host a Christmas Eve party with other volunteers and made plans to recreate the Nochebuena of my childhood.

Without refrigeration the only fresh meat is alive, so we headed to the market to buy a pig. The Cameroonian ladies in the market helped us pick out a beautiful medium-sized female. We named her Bernice.

We held the party at our friend Craig’s house in Campo, a tropical paradise in southern Cameroon. Traveling to Campo with Bernice was less than idyllic. The poor thing was tied on top of one bush taxi after another as we made our way south. We reached Campo around midnight and struggled to carry her up a steep hill to Craig’s house. Bernice was unhappy and heavy. In frustration we hoisted her on top of our rolling suitcase, but she promptly wriggled off. We arrived at Craig’s exhausted and slept soundly that night.

The following day was Bernice’s last and we treated her well. Some carefully arranged banana leaves provided her with shade while she feasted on our leftover beans and rice. Craig’s Cameroonian neighbor advised: “It is easy to kill a pig, just drink lots of wine first.” I called my cousin in Miami, who had roasted a pig in his backyard a few years earlier. He offered some better suggestions, but warned: “You’re going to be covered in blood. People are going to lose teeth.”

We needed a plan. We found a helpful book called Swine Science which recommended “rendering the pig insensible” to make the killing more humane. Our idea was to hit Bernice on the head with the blunt end of an ax. For the killing, our tools were limited – two dull knives and a dull machete. For the roasting, we dug a huge coffin-sized hole, lined the edges with bricks, filled the middle with charcoal and gathered banana leaves to cover the top. Craig’s house was right on the beach, so we prepared the slaughter area closer to the water. We gathered small, dry branches for the fire to boil water. Dipping Bernice in boiling water would make it easier to scrape off her hair. Finally we tied a rope to a nearby tree where we would hang Bernice to facilitate her gutting.

By evening everything was ready and we went to bed early. We had a long day ahead of us since Bernice could take up to 12 hours to cook. We had to get our killing done early.

We woke up at 3am and headed to the slaughter area. The water would take a long time to boil so we started the fire immediately. Lisa is a vegetarian and shied away from sharing in the slaughter. She was in charge of the fire. We reviewed our plan. Elizabeth and Craig would hold down Bernice. Tim, the strongest, would "render her insensible" with the ax. Matt would cut her throat. And I, the aspiring movie director, would direct the process and record it with my camera.

Tim said a short prayer for Bernice and we observed a moment of silence. Elizabeth and Craig got into position. Tim held up the ax. We held our breaths in anticipation. Matt suddenly interrupted: “Wait! Stop! Wait! What if something goes wrong? Something we don’t expect is going to happen and we need to be ready for it.” We all exhaled deeply, releasing some of the tension.

We discussed possible difficulties. In spite of extensive sharpening efforts, our knives and machete were still not terribly sharp. But we had no other options. Craig was concerned about the Cameroonian fishermen who arrive early each morning. He thought the sight of bloody Americans and a dead pig might disturb them. But we had several large buckets for catching the blood and an ocean full of water for washing.

It was around 4am and time to start. Everyone got back into position. Tim turned to me and asked, “How hard do you want me to hit her?” I told him to hit her as hard as he could. Tim wasn’t sure and pressed, “I might break her skull.” I reassured him, “Break her skull then, but hit her as hard as you can.” I really wanted her to be knocked out quickly to make the slaughter as humane as possible. We were ready to go.

Tim slammed the ax into Bernice’s head and it made a horrific cracking noise. Elizabeth and Craig started to let go, saying “she’s dead.” I wasn’t sure and countered “No, I don’t think so. Keep holding her down.” Bernice was definitely knocked out. Matt stabbed the knife into her neck and Bernice woke up with a terrifying squeal. He tried to cut across her neck, but the knife’s handle snapped off. Matt yelled out over Bernice’s shrieks: “We need help! We need help! The knife broke! We need help!” Tim grabbed the machete and swung at her neck, but the machete bounced off. Bernice continued wailing. Tim snatched up the other knife and sliced through her neck. Blood squirted out in every direction. Finally, we heard the gurgling noise of Bernice choking on her own blood and we knew she was dead.

It was all very Lord of the Flies. It was pitch black and very difficult to see. We worked by the light of a small petrol lantern. The whole thing only took about 30 seconds, but the adrenaline rush seemed to last forever.

Once Bernice was dead, we took turns scraping off her hair with the broken knife and the one good knife we had left. Bernice was not like American pigs. She was a wild bush pig and had long, thick hair. Although the de-hairing was not the most dramatic part of the ordeal, it was the most difficult. Elizabeth and I were on scraping duty as the sun came up and Craig’s fishermen friends began to arrive. We had done a pretty good job cleaning up the gore and the fishermen were not upset.

Adolph, Craig’s Cameroonian colleague, came over around 7am. Most of Bernice’s hair was gone, but we were struggling with a few tough spots. Adolph proposed we shave off the little hair left with a razor. It did the trick and we felt pretty stupid for not thinking of that ourselves. Adolph also helped us with the gutting. Matt and I held her front and hind legs spread apart while Adolph expertly extracted her entrails. Bernice still smelled like a dead carcass, but she was beginning to look like meat.

Lisa had disappeared during the gutting. When we brought Bernice back up to the house for her final cleaning and marinating, we found Lisa waiting for us with hot fresh chocolate chip pancakes. The rest of us hadn’t thought much about eating for quite some time, but after five hours of blood, sweat and tears we were famished and most appreciative of Lisa’s thoughtfulness.

After stuffing myself with pancakes, I went back to work on Bernice. I tried to replicate what I’d seen my mother do. I stabbed into Bernice’s flesh and stuffed garlic and lemon juice into the holes. I rubbed her down with more of the same and sprinkled her with salt, pepper, cumin and oregano. Finally I wrapped her tightly between two metal grates.

Meanwhile, Craig and Matt had gotten the charcoal started. Our pit oven was hot and ready. The guys carefully lowered Bernice into the ground and everyone helped cover her up with banana leaves. According to my cousin’s instructions, we were not to even peek inside for at least four hours. We were all ready for a break by then anyway.

Most of us headed straight for the ocean. Craig didn’t have running water and his well was low. We needed to save the well water for drinking, so the ocean was the place to bathe. Having never before scrubbed myself clean of pig gore in the ocean, I was surprised to find that it’s quite difficult to get up a good lather in salt water. But we were all determined to get clean and managed with a little effort.

After cleaning up, we took turns napping in Craig’s hammock. Periodically someone would ask me: “Michele, can we peek yet? Can we, please?” But I was determined to follow my cousin’s instructions. I had even set a timer for four hours. Soon delicious smells began seeping through the banana leaves. Four hours rolled around and it had been so built up by then, that we counted down the last 10 seconds.

Bernice did not disappoint. She looked magnificent and smelled divine. It was starting to feel like Christmas. We cautiously flipped her over and covered her up with more banana leaves. We put on Bing Crosby and Craig got out the tiny Christmas tree his mother had sent in a care package. With the help of some wine from Equatorial Guinea the next few hours passed quickly. As soon as we got Bernice out of the pit and onto the table, we tore into her perfectly crispy skin and devoured her tender, succulent, flavorful flesh. Everyone raved – the best pork ever, the best meat ever, the best meal ever, the best Christmas ever!

Hungry Ghost

Sorry it's been a while, Michele, but, as you know, my Uncle Jeff died of leukemia two weeks ago and it's been a pretty rough period. Uncle Jeff was Japanese Zen Buddist, but while he was getting treatment in Manhattan, some Korean Zen nuns and monks started to visit him. As it became clear that he wasn't going to survive (at least, not in his current form), they offered their temple for the memorial service.

I will probably never attend a funeral like it. Many members of the Korean Zen congregation had shown up to help us (Jeff's friends and family) along in the service -- an act of kindness made bizarre only by the circumstances. Normally, funerals are private affairs; for my Uncle's funeral, family and friends were outnumbered by non-English speaking strangers who, along with showing up to help with the service, had also, sweetly, brought a home-cooked Korean feast.

After two hours of chanting on the floor, we moved to low tables and, again, sat on the floor to eat. The nun, who was the best English speaker, stood up to lecture us on the food we were about to recieve. "If you take food from the middle plates and put it on your plate," she said, "you must eat it! Otherwise, you will be reborn in Africa and starve." All of us non-Buddists giggled nervously, and the nun got mad. "Not for laughing!" she boomed. "If you waste food, you will be a hungry ghost!"

After that, we were all a little nervous to try anything, or at least to put in on our plates -- if we did, we'd have to eat it all. I tried to be adventurous and to recall what I had enjoyed in my brief visit to Korea, but mainly what I had liked there were the barbecued meats which, of course, weren't going to be available in a Zen temple. I did like the spring onion pancake-like things, as well as the spicy green beans, and I tried the kim chee (Korean fermented cabage and other veggies -- very spicy!) which I've never developed a real taste for but keep hoping to. I feel like it would increase my foodie street cred, but I just haven't been able to manage it yet.

I have not tried to cook much in the Korean style, but enjoyed those spring onion pancakes so much that I may try a recipe I found at korean.allfoodrecipe.com (below). If I do, I'll only make what I'm sure I can eat -- I surely wouldn't want to become a hungry ghost.

Ingredients:
DIPPING SAUCE
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
few drops sesame oil

BATTER
1/4 cup rice flour (or all-purpose flour)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water, approximately
few drops sesame oil
dash white pepper
(plus vegetable oil for frying)

VEGETABLES
4 green onions, cut on the diagonal into 1-inch lengths
1-1/2 cups fresh bean sprouts (mung bean sprouts)

Instructions:
Combine the dipping sauce ingredients and set aside.

Mix together the batter ingredients (except for the vegetable oil for frying). The batter should resemble a thin pancake batter; adjust the amount of water accordingly. Stir in the bean sprouts and green onions.

Heat vegetable oil in a griddle or skillet over medium-high heat. You want just enough oil to barely film the surface. Pour in half the batter or enough to make a large pancake about 1/4-inch thick. Fry on one side until golden brown but not scorched, then flip and cook the other side until golden. (You may need to lower the heat to prevent burning.) Remove the pancake and repeat with the remaining batter.

To serve, cut the pancakes into wedges, as if slicing a pizza. Serve warm or at room temperature with dipping sauce.

Millie's Date Bars or "Jefe, would you say that I have a plethora of baked goods?"

One of my most memorable Thanksgivings was the one I spent in Cameroon as a Peace Corps volunteer. I had an English language class to teach on Thanksgiving day and so of course I decided to talk about the holiday. I was not insane enough to try to explain the origins of Thanksgiving. Instead I focused on the idea of families coming together to celebrate and give thanks for the good things in their lives. It's hard to remember the details now, but for some reason that involved an unfortunate attempt to draw a cornucopia on the board. As was often the case, the kids thought I was completely nuts.

This Thanksgiving I was thankful for leftover pizza. That's what I ate for both lunch and dinner on Thanksgiving day. Such behavior is very un-me. I am a big fan of holidays, especially when the festivities involve elaborate meals, but last week I had to take it easy. Sort of. I still managed to spend the entire weekend cooking. I am hosting my first big family holiday extravaganza this Christmas. In addition to the main event on Christmas Eve, I will be feeding the whole gang four other dinners. The main entrees for three of those meals are now ready to go in my freezer. I am hoping this will lessen the hysteria and allow me to enjoy my time with the fam.

With only two weekends left (the third one we're spending in NYC and the fourth one is when everyone arrives), I am quickly moving on to phase two of the preparation of provisions: baking. Any proper holiday gathering must include a plethora of cookies, bars, brownies, etc. In my family "Millie's Date Bars" have always been among the essentials at Christmas.

Millie was an old friend of my grandparents. She was an American who married a Cuban and my grandparents knew her when they lived in Havana. Later we all ended up living within a few blocks of one another in Miami. I don't remember her very well, but my mother says that my brothers and I always liked her because she gave us caramel candies at Halloween.

Millie's Date Bars:
Preheat the oven to 325. In a square baking pan over a burner on medium heat, melt 1/4 lb. (1 stick) of unsalted butter until it turns slightly brown. In a separate bowl beat one egg and 1/2 cup of sugar until creamy. Add the melted butter. Add 1 cup of chopped dates (wetting the knife periodically while chopping will prevent it from getting too sticky). Combine 3/4 cup of flour with 1/2 tsp of baking powder and a dash of salt. Add the flour mixture and beat until well combined. Spread the batter into the same square pan you used to melt the butter. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. Allow the bars to cool in the pan. When cool, cut into little squares. These puppies are rich so I make my squares very small, about 1 inch. Roll the squares in confectioners sugar.

Dates bear a frightening resemblance to cockroaches, but once you roll these bars in the powdered sugar, they come out all white and pretty. So it's not too hard to block the images of the nasty bugs from one's mind while eating them. And like caramel candies, Millie's Date Bars are very effective at buying the affections of others.

Feeling like a Rockefeller

I guess if I'm going to say anything about Thanksgiving, I'd better make it quick -- there's only about 3 hours left of it, and counting. By the way, before I get onto that, I have to say that I can't believe you're making your own crust with two little ones to take care of. Oil or butter -- hell, even if it were making itself and popping itself into a preheated oven -- I'd still be impressed. I haven't tried making it yet, though, so maybe it DOES make itself and pop itself into a preheated oven.

In terms of Thanksgiving, I have the same memory of it as I do of Christmas. We always went to the same family's house for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and for both occasions, we always brought the appetizer: oysters Rockefeller. I always felt that this was a particularly appropriate dish for my family or, more precisely, my mother who, on holiday mornings, would be rushing around the kitchen but, somehow, still regal as always, her nightgown and robe flowing about the kitchen. It was like being part of an autumn wind, the very first stirrings of it, and light blue in color. Here's how you make her lovely, somehow gracious dish:

First, you arrange your half gallon of oysters (yes, indeedie) on shells (many fishmongers will have these left over from shucking them), and broil them until they release most of their juices and get a bit crispy around the edges. Meanwhile, cook and drain 4 packs of frozen spinach, to which you have added two tablespoons of anise seeds. After you've drained the spinach and anise, add some green onions and a bunch of parsley and puree the mixture in a blender. Return to the mixture to the pot you cooked the spinach in and add 1 and one-half sticks of buter, a cup of parmesan, 2 oz. of achovy paste, a cup of bread crumbs, 1 teaspoon of tyme, one teaspoon of worchester and tabasco to taste. Drain the oysters of the liquid they have released and top them with the sauce, blanketing each oyster entirely. Broil until the green sauce begins to brown.

There is something about this dish that somehow makes me, not just thankful to be alive, but thankful to be so honored as to have this oyster, this moment, this Thanksgiving. Hope you had a lovely one.

Evil Hellmann's and pie in Havana

Hey Hannah,

I haven't tried your fishy mayonnaise trick yet, but it sounds quite promising. I am not usually a mayonnaise person. I like oil and vinegar and eggs, but somehow when they come together something evil seems to happen. A few years ago I even tried making my own mayonnaise from scratch. My theory was that I just hadn't tasted good mayonnaise. Perhaps I had been too hasty in my outright condemnation of the condiment when I'd only tasted Hellmann's (an unfortunate name, if there ever was one). I carefully followed the instructions in Julia Child's recipe for oeuf mayonnaise. One of the things I liked was that she recommended using peanut oil. It was a significant improvement over the stuff in the jar, but I still didn't like it very much. I got the oeuf mayonnaise recipe from my friend Sunshine, who worked with me at the yarn store. I would share it with you, but I just looked all over for it and I can't find it.

Instead I will share my grandmother's pie crust recipe with you. As you know my grandmother is French, but she was actually born in Algeria when it was a French colony. Then when she married my Cuban grandfather, they ended up living in Havana. I mention all of this because I suspect that attempting to make a butter pie crust in a tropical climate would be a total nightmare. Her recipe calls for oil and no butter. I thought this might be good for a dairy-free kosher dessert as well, until I remembered that it has milk in it (maybe some substitution would work?). Even if you've got nothing against butter, the oil pie crust is so much easier.

Single Crust:
1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup oil
3 tbsp cold milk

Double Crust:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup cold milk

- Heat oven to 475.
- Mix flour and salt in a small bowl.
- Pour oil and milk into a measuring cup, don't stir. Pour all at once into flour.
- Stir with fork until well mixed.
- Use slightly more than half for bottom crust.
- Roll out between two sheets of wax paper. Peel off top paper.
- Place paper side up in a 9" pie pan. Peel off paper.
- If dough tears, mend without moistening.
- For single crust for quiche or uncooked fruit tarts, bake 8 - 10 minutes.
- Prick dough before baking so it won't pull up.
- You can also brush some beaten egg on the bottom to keep fillings from making it soggy.

I wouldn't advise messing with the technique. My friend Dayna, the pastry chef, tried rolling it out on a floured surface without wax paper and it didn't work. The dough absorbed the flour and became too dry, and we had to add more oil to make it work. There's one other little trick that I learned recently. Arrange the two sheets of wax paper perpendicular to one another. Roll out the dough to fill the square in the center of the wax paper cross. And your pie crust comes out just the right size.

I've been making a lot of pies and quiches recently, which I wouldn't be doing if I had take the extra time to fuss with a butter crust. I feel like I'm sending this to you a little late because the apple season is pretty much over, but there's always pumpkin.

I guess a seasonable follow up, would be to ask about Thanksgiving. Do you have any special thanksgiving recipes, peculiar turkey techniques or stories about turkey tragedies? The first time my mother tried cooking a turkey, she forgot to remove the plastic bag full of innards inside. We had to trash the whole thing.

So tell me about Thanksgiving.

Michele