The Small Town Chef

Liquid gold for your holiday cooking. This is my favorite kind of pre-Thanksgiving project—the kind you can knock out while settling in for a little College Football. Honestly, it’s perfect: the kitchen stays warm, the house starts smelling like the holiday, and the only thing you really have to remember is   don’t let it boil … which is easy enough to manage during commercial breaks.   I go big on flavor here. Fresh turkey wings (four) plus that stash of necks and bones from last year? Absolute gold. I roast everything at 450°F for a full hour, just until those edges get deep brown and the pan drippings look like pure flavor. Drop them into your largest stock pot. Then—don’t skip this part—I splash in a little water into the roasting pan and scrape up every last bit to pour right into the stock pot.  From there, it’s all the classics: 6 carrots, chopped into big 2-inch pieces 6 celery ribs, same treatment 1 whole head of garlic, halved 3 onions, quartered 1 teaspoon whol...