It’s almost Thanksgiving and for millions of Americans that means there’s a turkey looming. While home cooks and chefs run around this week, stirring the pot with recycled tips and recipes (brine or not? deep fry? grill? smoke or beer-can bake?), vendors and butchers around the country endure the busiest time of the year.
At Mecox Bay Dairy in Bridgehampton, New York, though, all is quiet now on the roadside field where, only a few days ago, more than 250 white birds huddled together to defy a cold spell or perhaps their destiny.
The traffic increases steadily at the farm store in the days leading to Thanksgiving. Here was regular Steven Cohen, stopping by to pick up his Hamptons turkey on his way to Kaua‘i where he owns a house.
“One year we traveled with twelve bags and coolers,” he said. “And the only cooler that didn’t make it was the turkey. Two days later, we got a call from American Airlines Freight. ‘We found your cooler’, they said, ‘it went to Fiji!’”
A twinkle in his eyes, owner/farmer/cheese maker Art Ludlow, 73 —cropped white hair and a mellowing Indiana Jones style—describes himself as a wannabe retiree. He learned to drive a tractor at age 6 and has been raising turkeys for Thanksgiving since the late 1960s.
Sunrise on Mecox Bay
getty
“Everything we sell at the farm store, from raw milk to Berkshire Heritage pork, grass-fed beef and raw-milk cheese, we produce ourselves,” he said recently outside a trailer where rows of turkeys, now all plump and plucked, awaited customers. “It’s the growing of stuff that fosters our sense of pride.”
That sense of pride seems firmly rooted in the farmland abutting Mecox Bay, some of which he co-owns with his brother Harry Ludlow. Art runs the only dairy farm on the South Fork of Long Island while Harry runs the Fairview Farm and its haute farm stand, as well as the famous corn maze in the Fall.
Pumpkin in the fields
getty
“We still live in the farmhouse my great-grandfather built in 1875, after he came home from his stint as first mate on a whaling ship in the Bering Sea,” said Art. “Today, both my sons work with me, and my wife and daughter-in-law help out when they can.”
Art remembers “processing” the turkeys with his parents and brother. “In those days, we would store them in the car, hoping for cold weather!”
Today, the turkey-raising is a more organized affair. The Ludlows picked up the chicks last July from Pennsylvania in three batches, hatched two weeks apart, which allows them to sell three different sizes, from 12 to 30 lbs.
The birds are fed a specific diet made locally and as soon as they hit six to eight weeks, they are moved to a field and pasture-raised. Never frozen or medicated, the turkeys taste earthy with a whiff of fresh meadow and salty, ocean air. Asked how he feels while processing the birds, Art didn’t flinch. “They make me hungry,” he said.
Mecox Bay Dairy Roasted Turkey
Unwrap your fresh turkey, remove the bag of giblets from the top cavity, remove the neck from the body cavity, and rinse the turkey inside and out. Lightly fill the turkey with your favorite stuffing.
Place the turkey, breast side up, in a large roasting pan. Sprinkle with salt & pepper and rub with olive oil.
Place in preheated 425° oven for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 350°. Baste the turkey with pan juices every 30-45 minutes. If it starts to get too brown, cover with foil tent. Continue cooking according to the guidelines below, depending on the weight of your turkey.
When done, remove the turkey pan from the oven. Let sit 20 minutes. Carefully remove the turkey and place on carving platter. Cover lightly with foil.
For Gravy: Place the roasting pan on a burner, turn to high, add 1 cup water, and scrape down sides and bottom. Bring to a boil and let boil gently. Meanwhile, whip together ½ cup flour and 2 cups water until no lumps remain. Slowly pour the mixture into the gravy, stirring constantly. Let boil 2-3 minutes until creamy and thick. Serve as is or strain before serving.
Approximate cooking times:
Stuffed Turkey
18 lbs…………………… 4 hours
22 lbs…………………… 5 hours
25 lbs………………….. 5.25 hours
30 lbs………………….. 6 hours
Unstuffed Turkey
18 lbs…………………… 3.5 hours
22 lbs…………………… 4 hours
25 lbs…………………… 4.25 hours
30 lbs…………………… 5.25 hours
This post was originally published on here
