The Turkey Trot
I was lucky enough to catch the strangely ethereal Gwyneth Paltrow on Letterman last week. She was explaining that she and her family would be spending Thanksgiving over at the Spielbergs’. After throwing half a bag of Doritos at my Trinitron, I started wondering what other showbiz folks might be doing on that special day.
Thankfully, I am invited to an insanely chic Central Park West apartment overlooking the glittering skyline of Manhattan. This glamorous roost will be filled with the talented, the interesting and, most importantly, the gourmet-inclined. I was asked to bring all the soft drinks. This is absolutely fine by me, since I missed out on the Martha Stewart gene by a few thousand light years.
Have you ever been invited to my home for a meal? No, and you won’t be! You see, I don’t cook. At all. Left to my own devices, I would serve potato chips as a yellow vegetable. It took years for me to learn that Saltines are not a pasta. Brunch means squatting on the floor and eating out of a can. Get the picture? So, one of the many things I’m grateful for is that there are folks out there who will take pity on a pathetic bachelor artiste and cook up a storm.
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WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER THIS YEAR?
Barbara Cook
(Café Carlyle)
“I’m planning a very simple, relaxing day, and I’m going to a friend’s house for dinner. We always spend Thanksgiving together.
“I’m so happy I don’t have to sing that night, so I can eat a lot of turkey and sweet potatoes!”
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Rex Reed
(Columnist, New York Observer)
“I’m going to a friend’s home in the Hamptons. I’ll be in the kitchen all day with Polly Bergen and we’ll be making a totally Southern meal. She and I always battle over what goes in the cornbread: no green onion tops, just chopped, regular white onions. No chestnuts, no oysters. Nothing bizarre or peculiar. There must be crushed pineapple in
the sweet potato casserole, although Polly doesn’t agree. I’ll make the pies, because she doesn’t excel at pie crusts. I’ll do two cocoanut, two pecan, and one pumpkin for the traditionalists in the group. There will be about 10 or 12 people there. We’ll play cards and we’ll cook and we’ll taste and we’ll argue. It’ll be a lot of fun! They’ve stocked up on Joan Crawford movies, including the one where Joan is the matron and Polly is dragged away to the insane asylum. Polly hasn’t seen it since the day it was made. This will be the big Thanksgiving activity: watching Polly and Joan in the nuthouse while we stir the pumpkin!”
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Judy Kaye
(Arci’s Place)
“Len Cariou and his wife, Heather, recently moved into my apartment complex high atop the Palisades in Guttenberg, New Jersey. Heather is an absolutely brilliant cook, and her kitchen is finally done, so we’re going over there and throwing ourselves at her mercy. She’ll feed us until we explode! She has asked me to bring my specialty, which in her mind is salads, so I’ll be doing some kind of vegetable thing; actually, I’m the only one who has the patience to stand there and cut up all that crap. She’ll make a fantastic turkey, homemade cranberry chutney, and pies of every conceivable sort. We actually call Heather Cariou ‘OVTM,’ for ‘One Vegetable Too Many.’ I’m not sure who all will be there, but we will have a wonderful day. And they have as good a view of Manhattan as we do!”
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