verbatim

Keeping Secrets

Last week at book group we discussed The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton. It is not at all the sort of novel I normally read. In fact, I was not looking forward to reading it at all—I'll admit, partly because the cover was so pink that I was sure it was going to be eye-rollingly fluffy. But guess what, I loved it! 

The story goes back and forth between 2011, when Laurel's 90-year-old mother Dorothy is dying, and 1941, when Dorothy first arrives as a young woman in London. As you can guess from the title, Dorothy has been keeping a secret about her past, and Laurel is determined to figure it out before it's too late. I found the characters to be believable and relatable; more importantly, the author didn't rely on ridiculous coincidences to move the plot along. There are twists and turns galore, particularly at the end, but never once did I feel manipulated. All too often when there's a twist at the end of a book, I either saw it coming a mile away or it's so preposterous that I am furious. Neither is the case in this book. As soon as I finished reading, I found myself flipping back through the book trying to locate places where I might have figured things out. All the clues were there, but I didn't put it together on my own. Brava, Ms. Morton!

There was plenty to talk about at our meeting—for instance, we spent quite a bit of time talking about whether a child has the right to try to uncover a parent's secret. Or anyone, for that matter—is the truth just information that should be available to anyone who can get at it?

Morton has written several other books, all of which seem to follow the pattern of sweeping family saga with secrets to be uncovered. I'm not in a hurry to read all of them, but I can see how someone who loves this type of book might want to lock herself in a room and just read straight through. I most definitely enjoyed this one, though! Has anyone else read it?

Turkey Day Preview

As of a couple of hours ago, I had finished my current editing project (and now have nothing on the docket until after Thanksgiving!) and my Thanksgiving shopping. (I have still done almost none of my Hanukkah shopping, though, and I'm here to say that I'm glad this Thanksgivukkah thing will never again happen in my lifetime.)

We are up to 23 feasters this year, so I will be spending the early part of next week cooking, cooking, and then cooking. In case you need recipes:

Here's my preferred roast turkey technique, from Joy of Cooking. I'll be doing two, as usual—I brine one on Tuesday, let it air-dry in the fridge overnight, and roast it on Wednesday; then I brine the second on Wednesday, air-dry it overnight, and roast it Thursday; then I rewarm bird #1 gently and splice it in with bird #2 and it always works out fine. The instructions for the gravy are there too; I also make a big batch of yucky bland plain gravy and then mix in the good concentrated stuff after roasting the turkey; this makes plenty and also ensures that the final product is not too salty.

I make 6 pans of stuffing (OK, dressing). Last year I had to make another batch over the weekend because I always spend the entire post-Thanksgiving period eating stuffing with gravy, and purring softy. Grandma Sophie always adored my stuffing.

I make a double batch of roasted root veggies, and every year I wonder why I don't make this particularly delicious combination more often throughout the year.

I used to make cranberry sauce, but now I prefer cranberry applesauce. And my sister brings cranberry Jello mold, as well as her delicious pumpkin bread. There will also be steamed green beans and I'm probably forgetting something else....

I know some people go all out for Thanksgiving dessert (and we have done so in the past), but I am generally too full to even think about much more than a few bites of something sweet at that point. Andy is in charge of pies, and this year he is getting a few varieties from Petsi Pies in Somerville. We will also have fruit, cookies (Julie's job), and whatever else anyone brings. 

I love Thanksgiving.

Best Oven-Fried Chicken

You know we love fried chicken here, but I don't always feel like doing the actual frying, so sometimes I go the oven-fried route. Last night I used a recipe I'd been meaning to try for a while—well, you can't really call it a recipe, more like a technique. It came out excellent. My only slight complaint was that it was a wee bit salty, even though I decreased the amount of salt called for in the flour used for dredging. And we really like salty, so that's saying something. Wait! It just occurred to me that she called for sea salt and I used table salt; perhaps she meant coarse sea salt, which would have meant considerably less salt. Yes, now I'm sure that's the case! Whoops. Kosher salt would probably be fine too.

I found this at Leite's Culinaria, where I find so many of my favorite recipes, techniques, and food ideas. It comes from Amanda Hesser's mom. I doubled the whole thing (except the salt, as noted) and used two pans. You need to start it in the morning; you soak the chicken in salted ice water for a few hours to season the meat and tighten the flesh for better crisping. Really, the skin is so crunchy, you won't believe it wasn't deep-fried. As I type this, I'm eating a sandwich of leftovers, and it is just as yummy cold.

Judy Hesser's Oven-Fried Chicken

3 tablespoons coarse sea salt (I used regular table salt. Bad idea!)
8 chicken thighs (organic or natural, not Perdue or somesuch) (She said that, not me; I agree that natural birds are tastier, but I am not likely to use the word "somesuch." Also, I used a mixture of thighs, drums, and breasts.)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

In the morning, combine 2 tablespoons of the salt and 1 cup warm water in a large bowl or container. Stir to dissolve the salt. Trim the chicken of excess skin and fat. Add the chicken to the bowl. Cover with very cold water and add a tray of ice cubes. Swish around with your hand to disperse them. Cover and chill in the refrigerator until dinner time.

Preheat the oven to 400°. Remove the chicken from the fridge and pat dry completely with paper towels. Put the butter in a roasting pan large enough to fit the chicken in one layer. Place the pan in the oven. In a 1-gallon zip-top bag, pour in the flour, remaining 1 tablespoon salt, and the pepper. Give it a good shake. Add the chicken pieces two at a time and shake them until thoroughly coated. As you lift them out of the bag, shake them off vigorously. This is vital—you do not want a gummy coating. Line them up on a plate, and repeat with the rest.

Lay the chicken pieces in the roasting pan, skin side down, and oven-fry until chestnut brown and crisp on the bottom, about 40 minutes (sometimes it takes as long as an hour). Don’t flip them until this happens. Use a thin spatula to scrape them up off the pan and turn them; cook the other side the same way. (It doesn't take anywhere near that long on the second side.) Remove the pieces from the oven as they finish cooking, and place on a plate lined with paper towels. 

Reading, for Fun and Profit

Phew, I'm finally coming up for a breath of air. What has been keeping me submerged is that gazillion-page biography of Michael Jordan that I was editing, and it's finally done! I now know more about His Airness than any of you, so there. Andy totally earned a dinner out for his help on this. I wish I could share every phrase that I had to run by him to make sure it made sense. For example, is "an Ice Gervin finger-roll tip-in" a thing? (Yes.) Can someone be a "water bug" guard? (Yes.) Is a "help defender" a real position? (Yes.) And so on. I found myself starting conversations with him like "How 'bout when Laimbeer elbowed Scottie in the face?" And "What were Krause and Reinsdorf thinking?" 

Next up is another cookbook, yay! Back in my comfort zone.

For those of you who follow such things, the winner of this year's Man Booker Prize was Eleanor Catton, for her book The Luminaries. And yours truly was the proofreader of that book, so I had already read it when the prize was announced! Here's the description from the Booker site:

The Luminaries, set in 1866 during the New Zealand gold rush, contains a group of 12 men gathered for a meeting in a hotel and a traveller who stumbles into their midst; the story involves a missing rich man, a dead hermit, a huge sum in gold, and a beaten-up whore. There are sex and seances, opium and lawsuits in the mystery too. The multiple voices take turns to tell their own stories and gradually what happened in the small town of Hokitika on New Zealand's South Island is revealed.

It was a doozy, and not at all something I ever would have picked up to read on my own, so I'm very glad it was assigned to me.

I also want to remind you about a lovely book I edited last year that is finally out: A Thousand Hills to Heaven by Josh Ruxin. I described it here, and you can read the many rave reviews at the Amazon page linked to above. 

Now that I have a little more time on my hands, my first order of business is to read The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton for next week's book group meeting. I haven't even started it yet. Has anyone out there read it? What are all of you reading?

Hot Stove

I did not go to the Red Sox Rolling Rally parade today, even though it was a magnificent fall day, because I'm not really a fan of big, disorganized crowd events. I did watch on TV at home, though, and it was great! All our boys looked like they were having a blast with their families on the duck boats, riding from Fenway all the way to the river, and then into the river. It was especially nice when they stopped the parade on Boylston Street and, without any speeches or fanfare, simply placed the World Series trophy on the Boston Marathon finish line and draped a "Boston Strong" Sox jersey over it. 'Nuff said.

I do, however, like big organized crowd events, especially Red Sox games—yes, I was at Game 6 at Fenway! It was a magical night. As we inched closer with every out, the excitement and energy in the park got buzzier and no one could stay seated. What an experience! I am a lucky girl.

I had plans to leave you with links to lots of videos and photos and articles, but I know you can find them on your own, but I will say that if you didn't catch Roger Angell's series of essays on this year's Fall Classic, you're really missing out on some fine writing. 

So, no more baseball for 103 more days, but who's counting....