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By Root 1052 0

had taken the advice I’d read somewhere to crank the oven to 500 degrees for the first ten minutes of roasting, to create a crisp, browned skin. This method probably shortened the necessary cooking time. Still, the turkey had an insert that would pop automatically when it was supposedly cooked through. I didn’t have it in me to trust the plastic device, so after the bird looked positively done—beautifully done—at about four hours, I removed it from the oven and placed it on the stove to admire for a good, long minute. Its skin was glistening a warm golden brown, looking crisp to the touch along the center of the breast and at the crests of the drumsticks. I had stuck a few lemon slices and sprigs of thyme underneath the skin of its breast, and they were visible beneath the orangish skin, which had turned slightly translucent and had molded around them. It looked like the cover of a fall cooking magazine. Just then, the white plastic insert shot out.

I grabbed Ben for a hand at heaving the bird out of the pan so that I could begin making the gravy from the juice. He had stayed at a good distance while I took over the kitchen the entire day. I asked him again why he wouldn’t come to Maia’s. I was sure there would be a person or two he knew there. He used the defense of saying that he wouldn’t be upset if I didn’t want to come along to something where mostly his friends were involved. I argued that since Karol was such a close friend of mine, she was his friend by now, too. He pointed out that he’d come to so many other cooking events with me and Karol. I knew Ben wasn’t crazy about Matt, even though he’d met him only once or twice, and I accused him of this, too. I also got down on him for never wanting to come to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner, since they were so close. But Ben was loyal to spending his Thanksgivings with Richard and Sam, as he had been ever since moving to New York City six years ago for college. The three of them and a host of other friends whose families also lived too far away to justify a plane ticket for the short holiday annually gathered at Richard and Sam’s apartment for a Thanksgiving feast. There was no pulling him away from that tradition.

In the end, no one left this fun little conversation happy, and I got into a cab to go to Maia’s alone, with the fully roasted turkey, gravy, and my extra side. Yes, I had found time to prepare another side, while cooking the turkey that day. I wanted it to be a surprise for the others.

Cooking was in full swing when I arrived at Maia’s. A spare door had been propped up on the floor with piles of books and covered with a tablecloth to create the dinner table. It had already been set with appetizers and a plate of Maia’s perfectly golden, fluffy-looking biscuits.

Maia and Karol were scuttling about preparing their dishes in the open kitchen, and I squeezed in to warm the gravy and prepare the rest of my side course. Matt was fussing over his pumpkin, bean, and corn succotash, which was served out of an enormous hollowed half-pumpkin bowl. The pumpkin bowl was too large for the dish, so Matt carefully carved off some of its height at the top so that he was left with a ring of pumpkin. He wore it around his neck for most of the night. On the stove, an enormous pot of mulled apple cider was steaming. The drink of the night was a hot toddy, mixed with Bourbon and topped with mint sprigs, and I helped myself to one. After an hour or so of cooking around the kitchen and living room, we all sat down to help ourselves to a meal.

Even the vegetarians in our group joined in the chorus of aahs as the turkey was ceremoniously placed on the table. I began scooping the stuffing from the cavity into a bowl, though, and some turned away with uncomfortable expressions. Someone had brought paper turkey frills to place on the ends of the drumsticks. Once they were slipped on, they instantly made it look like something out of a comic strip. Lined up on the table were both Matt’s vegetarian stuffing and mine, the pumpkin succotash, garlic-sautéed kale, mashed potatoes, gravy,