boatingonthehudson.com HOLIDAY 2013 77
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boatingonthehudson.com
Holiday Issue 2012
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Wednesday-Thursday 8am-8pm
Friday - Saturday 8am 9pm
Sundays - 8am - 6pm
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Athens, NY
Athens Riverside
Restaurant
6 SouthWater St.
518-945-1110
my kids, who are looking for just about anything they can get
their hands on that will produce an enormous mess. Oh, and
there’s wine, did I mention the wine? The conversation goes
to food, which is unusual. We usually stick to the important
stuff like, sex, shoes, chocolate, the cover of People, that usually
holds us for a good few hours. There’s definitely a lot of wine.
One year, the question was proposed, what did people want
other than the traditional stuff? There is so much available
now. Everybody wants to be a Gourmet, especially around
the holidays. Some cooks just kill themselves trying to make
something that looked very pretty in the book. And they do
it on Thanksgiving Day no less, definitely not the time to de-
virginize a new recipe, if you ask me. Roasted chestnut sorbet
– yes, it exists, pumpkin scones, truffle infused stuffing, cran-
berry frappes. The new options are endless. Did we even want
anything out of our “normal” tradition?
No, as a matter of fact. It was unanimous. We didn’t.
Thanksgiving is all about tradition; it’s comforting in a
way, havingoneday a year that some things don’t change.
Things that taste as good as you remember them. That’s
home for the holidays. Acceptable holiday foods; Turkey,
Roast, Ham, period. I’m partial to Turkey of course. The
truth is, just like my Mother, I really do whip out the same
meal every year, and I love it. So does my family and
after 10 Thanksgivings-worth of letters from you kind
folks, I know you do too. So here we go again…
TheWorld’s Greatest Turkey
First, bird selection is key...for turkey, I go with MURRAY!
Murray, Murray he’s my man, if he can’t feed me, no man
can!
As far as I’m concerned, being in my mouth is a privi-
lege. I amvery particular, just askmy Husband. The expe-
rience that goes on behind the lips is a delicate dance between
tongue, touch and taste. To sully the encounter with, well, let’s
just say, inferior product, is just a sin. To me.
Murray’s is a local company – local meaning upstate New York.
Their claims are many, like: all natural, grown without any growth
hormones or antibiotics, farm raised, minimally processed, cer-
tified humane, family farmed and eco-friendly packaging. And
while I am a HUGE supporter of all of these things, for me, it’s all
about the taste. They are dam delicious!
I know I have mentioned Murray’s whenever we recommend
a chicken recipe, but I’d like you to know
why. I think it’s important that I school
you, my readers, just as I do my clients.
If you have ever taken a chicken cooking
lesson with me or if you have ever been an
assisted shopping client, you know, Mur-
ray’s is the only way I go. I hate Perdue – it
tastes terrible, the texture is stringy, the
skin is yellow – which is un-natural (that
color is deliberately added to the chickens’
feed for marketing purposes by the way)
and it goes bad in your fridge quickly.
I stopped eating Perdue when I real-
ized that I could actually taste the differ-
ence. In my early 20’s I dated a cute religious
Jewish boy who only ate kosher meat, I was
introduced to what a real
fresh chicken looked like
and tasted like. While kosher
chickens have one drawback,
they are sometimes a little
feathery; they are incredibly
delicious to eat. They are as
fresh as can be purchased;
their skin is as white as snow
and everywhere that they are
roasted, my nose is sure to
go. They taste better, cook up
better and have better tex-
ture. There is no comparison
between a Perdue bird and a
kosher one (or a Murray’s for
that matter). Sorry Frank.
While I thought my little Yid was dreamy, I knew it was unreal-
istic to believe I was going to be purchasing my chicken at the
kosher butcher from now on, kosher butchers are expensive…
ok so, two drawbacks. So now what? I knew the difference – I
couldn’t un-know it.
One day, later in time, while walking through the gourmet food
store I noticed a new chicken, it was white and it looked incredibly
fresh. Looked like kosher, but I knew that it wasn’t. It was Murray.
I looked him over, picked out a few more of his friends and took
him home with me for a little experimentation. Truth was, I had
been a little lonely. The nice Jewish boy thing
hadn’t stuck and I was back to shopping on
the upper east-side again. Because now I
knew the difference, I had simply just avoided
buying chicken.
Now it looked as if I may have a contender. I
didn’t care if it has been blessed. I only wanted
good food. So I tried. I made a whole roasted
chicken, cooked up chicken parts by them-
selves with a little Magic Oil and did one dish
of my Mom’s chicken n’ rice. Wow, lemme tell
Ya, that was some good chicken! Andwouldn’t
you know it, cheaper than kosher. So basically
I was getting the ‘cheaper chicken’. (Father of
the Bride reference there folks)
I was thrilled and relieved. I started noticing that
Ivey’s Roasted
Turkey Video
Butterflied
Turkey Video
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