Thinking back, that moment may, in all reality, have sent me on the path to loving and working with food. I was not prepared for what I had been missing. I knew it had to be something special, so I went for it, too. When he pulled a piece of perfectly crisp skin from that turkey, I saw him just pause and take his time eating it.
It was like seeing him put his heart out on the table. He grew up very poor, but along the way had become a phenomenal cook, and watching him brine and roast a turkey, accompany it with perfect mashed potatoes baked into toasted cones, making gravy from the pan drippings, pan-searing fresh green beans, and making something I’d never seen before with cranberries and sour cream. Then, when I was 12, I watched my grandfather cook for Thanksgiving. I fixated on fat, refusing to eat it or skin of any kind. “Growing up, I was embarrassingly picky about food.
