Don’t let that big knife scare you. Essex Street Market butcher Jeffrey Ruhalter will be happy to help you prepare for Thanksgiving, which is only 10 days away. We stopped by over the weekend to learn about some of the options available for the big feast.
Here’s the scoop:
If you want a fresh, all-natural turkey (from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania), you’ll need to get your order in no later than the end of the day tomorrow.
But if you just need a regular fresh or frozen turkey, there’s still time. Jeffrey says you can order those varieties up until Monday or Tuesday of next week. What’s the price difference? The all-natural bird will cost you around $4.75/pound — $2.29 or so for a regular fresh turkey — and $1.99 for frozen.
What’s Jeffrey serving for Thanksgiving dinner? He told us he’s partial to the turduken (you know — a duck stuffed inside a chicken stuffed inside a turkey, along with sausage, pine nuts, mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes). Because they’re so much work to prepare, he only makes 10 of them for the holiday. There are one or two orders left (and they’ll set you back $150 a piece).
Personally, we were intrigued by Pizza a Casa matermind Mark Bello’s Thanksgiving tradition. He takes his turkey to a local Chinese restaurant, where they prepare the whole bird “Hong Kong style.” We’re going to give it a try – look for a full report on that later this week.
